Meet Gretchen Suárez-Peña
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Gretchen Suárez-Peña (she/her) is a Puerto Rican playwright based in Central Florida and Western Pennsylvania. She is an MFA candidate in the Dramatic Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama (Class of 2024).
She is part of the Conch Shell Productions (NY) Artists Collective of Writers. She frequently works with New Generation Theatrical (FL), Just Write! Lakeland (FL), the Latinx Playwright Circle (NY), and the Latiné Musical Theatre Lab (NY). She is currently the book writer for The Fairy's Tale (music and lyrics by Michael Mott). Her piece Searching for Abuelo was the first-place winner at the Voices of Women Theatre Festival at Powerstories Theatre (2023) and awarded Best Full-Length Play at the 2023 Tampa Bay Theatre Festival. Her show Across the Atlantic opened the 2023 BIPOC Play Reading Series at the Straz Center in Tampa, Florida. Her short play, The Arithmetic of Memory, has been produced across the country and was published in the Stonecoast Review where it was nominated for a Pushcart Award in Drama (2021). It was the 2023 Gary Garrison National Ten-Minute Play Award winner for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). Her one act, Wingman, was also recognized by KCACTF as a John Cauble Regional 2 Finalist. Her musical, Melina: A Steampunk Musical Tragedy was an official selection of the 2020 Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival. Other successes include winning the writer's grant and best play at the 2019 Be Original Festival for her play, Trafficked. Also, her show Conversations in the Car was awarded Best Full-Length play at the 2018 Tampa Bay Theatre Festival, and she won first prize for her short play, Dry Spell, at the 30 by Ninety Theatre’s 2018 Night of One Acts Competition. A portion of her work is available to be read on the New Play Exchange and she is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild. 
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