Playwright and teacher Migdalia Cruz was among the first participants in María Irene Fornés’s Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Laboratory at INTAR in the early 1980s. In the decades since, Cruz has become not only one of the most influential Latina playwrights in the United States but also a central figure in guiding new generations of writers, scholars, and artists through the foundational principles and practices of the Fornés playwriting method. Here, Cruz balances the reflective impulse of memoir with the more didactic priorities of instruction as, first, she outlines core principles of Fornés’s pedagogy (including direct quotations from some of Fornés’s teaching sessions in italics) before guiding the reader through an in-depth demonstration of a representative Fornés playwriting exercise, followed by some optional homework for future writing sessions.

Luis Alfaro’s encounter with Fornés at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles inspired him to begin writing plays. In the decades since, Alfaro has become one of the most produced and most studied Chicano playwrights in the US. Here, he reflects on the interlocking webs of artistic community charted by those who carry with them Fornés’s influence as an artist and as a teacher. He also contemplates what it means to carry the Fornésian legacy through his own practice as a playwright, teacher, and community-builder.