Meet Gretchen Suárez-Peña
Photo Credit Lous Stein - www.lbsphoto.com
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Gretchen Suárez-Peña (she/her) is a Puerto Rican playwright and screenwriter based in Florida. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama (Class of 2024). She is an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University Department of Theatre and Dance.
She is currently the book writer for Sometimes Love (music and lyrics by Michael Mott). Her screenplay, For Such a Time, received the $5,000 Third Place Award in the 2024 Alfred P. Sloan Script Competition at Carnegie Mellon University. Her piece Searching for Abuelo was the first-place winner at the 2023 Voices of Women Theatre Festival, the best full-length play at the 2023 Tampa Bay Theatre Festival, and an official selection of the 2024 NYC Downtown Urban Arts Festival and the SheATL 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 play, With a Torch of Seven Virtues, was the 2nd Place Latinx Playwriting Award recipient for the 2024 National KCACTF. Her one act, Wingman, was also recognized by KCACTF as a 2023 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 $5,000 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. 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. | ||