Marisela Treviño Orta
(playwright)
Marisela Treviño Orta is an accidental playwright. She found her way to the genre while completing an MFA in Writing at the University of San Francisco (USF) where she studied poetry. While at USF, Marisela became the Resident Poet of El Teatro Jornalero!, a Latino theatre company that devised work inspired by social justice issues.
Marisela’s first play Braided Sorrow won the 2006 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize in Drama, received its world premiere in 2008 at Su Teatro in Denver, and won the 2009 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Drama. Her other plays include: American Triage (2012 MetLife Nuestras Voces National Playwriting Runner-Up); Heart Shaped Nebula (2012 O’Neill Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist, 2013 Aurora Theatre Global Age Project Finalist); and Woman on Fire.
Marisela is a Playwrights Foundation Resident Playwright Initiative alumna, a founding member of the Bay Area Latino Theatre Artists Network, and a member of the Latino Theatre Commons steering committee.
Currently, Marisela is about to begin her third year at the Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop. There she is working to complete her grim Latino fairy tale cycle—plays which include The River Bride (2013 National Latino Playwriting Award Co-Winner, 2016 Oregon Shakespeare Festival world premiere), Wolf at the Door, and Alcira.