Fellowship / Fellows

Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas

  • 2021–2022
  • Arts
  • Perrin Moorhead Grayson and Bruns Grayson Fellow
  • Independent Artist
Portrait of Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Photo courtesy of Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas is a theater maker and the artistic director of the Obie-winning company Fulcrum Theater. His theater work considers how history writes itself into the present through the limited choices that hem in, and simultaneously create possibility in, the lives of his characters. His most recent play, Recent Alien Abductions, examines asymmetrical power relationships at the geopolitical level (between Puerto Rico and the United States) and the interpersonal level (between a queer child and a straight family). That play premiered at the Humana Festival at the Actors Theater of Louisville under the direction of Les Waters.

During his fellowship, Cortiñas hopes to continue work on a series of essays on the contested interplay between art and politics. He will also work on a play that investigates the difference 30 years’ worth of economic, cultural, and political changes have made to queer life in the United States.

Other works by Cortiñas include Backroom, at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Bird in the Hand, presented by Fulcrum Theater and published by Dramatic Publishing, which was a New York Times Critic’s Pick; and Blind Mouth Singing, presented by the National Asian American Theatre Company and another New York Times Critic’s Pick. His awards include fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and United States Artists. Cortiñas is a “Usual Suspect” at New York Theatre Workshop and an alumnus of New Dramatists.

Our 2023–2024 Fellows

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