Courtesy of Emma Pratte

Theater — according to award-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes ’99 — is an ephemeral experience. It is “a now-or-never genre, a one-time ceremony,” and for years, Hudes has dedicated herself to this artform. 

Hudes is a critically-acclaimed playwright, essayist and screenplay writer currently based in New York City. She is best known for writing the book of the Tony winning musical “In The Heights” and the script of “Water By the Spoonful,” for which she received a Pulitzer Prize. 

“In the Heights” tells the story of the residents of Washington Heights, New York — and the stories of celebration and mourning within this largely Dominican-American neighborhood. 

For Hudes, the writing process begins with “something tiny,” rather than a specific intention or goal. 

“A small idea will lure me into daydreams. A character. A setting. A topic. Like a grain of sand in an oyster shell… And I just let my mind roam in that space for a very long time,” wrote Hudes in an email to the News. “This is the part of writing that happens while showering, doing dishes, waiting for the subway.” 

Throughout her career as a writer, Hudes has not limited herself to a single form. She has published essays in publications such as The New York Times and The Cut and has written screenplays, most recently for the 2021 animated film “Vivo.” 

According to Hudes, this versatility has allowed her to develop “distinct but complementary practices.” However, she is conscious of the fact that with each form, audiences will interact with her writing in different ways. 

For Hudes, drama is a study of human behavior. Each medium caters to the way people engage with language. 

“Books are about experience, an internal life. How do people experience things?” Hudes said. “For live theater, you need the audience to hear the words — there is a technical requirement to articulate. For a reader, you imagine quiet corners of their mind and can drop your voice to a whisper.” 

In 2022, she published her first memoir, “My Broken Language.” The literary genre is more permanent than theater, said Hudes, which is dependent upon a live — innately fleeting — experience. 

According to Hudes, writing books allows her work to be placed “in conversation” with different moments in time. She said that it was “liberating” to work in this “longer-time” genre.

“I wonder if Magda Szabó or Toni Morrison or Jamaica Kincaid knew how helpful their books would be to me in moments of crisis, though I have never been to post-war Hungary or to segregated Ohio in the 1910’s or to Antigua.” She added, “This experience of long time has expanded my awareness, my sensitivity, my patience.”

She noted that over time her relationship to language has become more personal, as opposed to observational. 

Hudes used to “love” eavesdropping and interviewing. Now, she’s more in tune with the voice inside her head.  

“To me, there’s nothing more transfixing than the way people use language. But nowadays I tend to eavesdrop closer to home: on my own internal workings.”

Recently, her editor Chris Jackson has been prompting Hudes to think about the importance of consistency in a character’s voice. If a character’s intonations or expressions are not “consistent,” does their language require explanation? 

To Hudes, the answer is no. 

“The dichotomies, the disparate dialects and colloquialisms within one character do not represent inauthenticity, but the opposite. I have warring voices in my head,” Hudes said. “I speak urban, I speak suburban, I speak high, I speak low, I speak intellect, I speak spirit, I speak Bach, I speak Miles Davis.” 

The concept of language being consistent is unfathomable for Hudes, foreign even. 

During her undergraduate years at Yale, Hudes worked in the School of Music, helping to record its recitals. She cited memories of collaborating with her peers — composing music and staging productions — describing it as a time “to be active and creating.”

While Hudes graduated in 1999, her legacy at Yale persists today. In 2022, students put on a production of “In The Heights,” featuring an almost entirely Latine cast and crew.

“To be a part of it was a joy, and especially as a first year student, I felt very much incorporated into the student body in a way that I couldn’t have imagined,” said Cuatro Villareal ’26, who played Kevin Rosario. “The aspect of community, which very much is a subject in the musical itself, came alive through the process as well.”  

William Romain ’26 — who played Benny — echoed these remarks. He recalled the sense of community that grew between cast members over the course of the production, recalling the passion of those who surrounded him. 

“In the Heights” was first staged at Yale in April 2014 and then in February 2018.