MARIA ELENA TORRES

is the founding artistic director of Dramatic Question Theatre (DQT), where she has co-produced Word Menagerie: An Evening of Monologues (2009); The Ballad of Him & Her (2009); Firehouse (2010); Bill – A Rake’s Tale (2012); The Maltinsky Cycle: Play One (2012); Cowl Girl (2013); The Pet Play (2018); and, In The Night Everyone is Equal (2019). Ms. Torres’ work focuses on bringing history to life. Her plays include Three Men on a Base, which looks at the relationship between Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey; Wallenberg, a play about a meeting, in 1944, between Raoul Wallenberg and Adolph Eichmann; two plays which explore the truth of Richard III's character and career; and a cycle of plays about Diderot and his quest to bring access to knowledge to as many people he could reach. Her plays have been produced by the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, the Theatre for the New City, Soho Playhouse, the Julia Borges Latino Cultural Center, and HB Studios. She is working on the latest installment of The Maltinsky Cycle, a series of plays about her mother's Eastern European Jewish family, its escape from the Pale of Settlement and its assimilation into the United States. To that end, Sarah Rifka’s Secret was developed in DQT’s inaugural American Woman Lab and will be presented in June 2020 at Theatrelab, NYC. A champion of new works by under-represented voices, Ms. Torres spearheaded and co-facilitated the Playwrights/ Directors Lab (2010) and groundUp (2014), two of DQT’s major play development projects. She’s a Brooklyn native and graduate of Brooklyn College, where she developed her first play under the guidance of Jack Gelber. Ms. Torres is a former member and Director of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre’s Professional Playwrights Unit, a member of the HB Studios Playwrights Unit, and a member of the Dramatists Guild.