Meet Gretchen Suárez-Peña

Gretchen Suárez-Peña is a Puerto Rican playwright based in Central Florida. She is an MFA in Dramatic Writing student at Carnegie Mellon (class of 2024). 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 in Orlando, Florida for her play Trafficked. Also, winning best full-length play at the 2018 Tampa Bay Theatre Festival for her show Conversations in the Car, and first prize for her short play, Dry Spell, at the 30 by Ninety Theatre in Mandeville, Louisiana in their Night of One Acts Competition in 2018. Her show, Conversations in Bed, premiered to a sold-out audience at the 2017 Tampa Bay Theatre Festival. 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). 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.