Georgina Escobar

Georgina Escobar is a Mexican-American playwright, librettist, director and arts educator. Her plays explore themes of fantasy, mythology, feminism and the breakdown of the family, including science-fiction ("sci-femme") narratives, musicals, and "frontera-futurity" stories set on the U.S.–Mexico border.

She is a MacDowell Fellow, a Djerassi artist, a member of the María Irene Fornés and Clubbed Thumb writing groups, and a La MaMa Umbria playwright. She is a recipient of the Kennedy Center's Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award and the Outstanding Service to Women on the Border Award. Her work has been published in The Texas Review, Los Bárbaros, Routledge, McSweeney's Press ("I Know What's Best For You"), Climate Change Theatre Action's Lighting the Way, New Passport Press, and Inti Press (UK).

Her plays have been produced across the USA and internationally in México, UK, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden. Off-Broadway, her play Then They Forgot About the Rest premiered at INTAR Theatre in 2019. As an arts educator she has taught at Kingsborough College NY, University of Texas El Paso, Princeton University and Dartmouth College.

Early life and education Escobar was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Despite growing up in a community in Mexico that Escobar describes as a "machismo community of cattle ranchers and mine owners", she says the respect for women and the power they held within her family dynamic was very strong.

She has lived in many places throughout her life, including Chihuahua City, Chihuahua; Zacatecas City, Zacatecas; San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and New York City.

After graduating from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2006 with a degree in humanities and philosophy, to serving as the managing editor for the LTC online publication Café Onda, to acting as a steering committee member for the LTC from 2013.

Escobar's plays have been developed and produced at theaters including INTAR, Dixon Place, The Flea Theater, Lincoln Center, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Clubbed Thumb, the Bushwick Starr, Two Rivers Theater, Milagro, the Aurora Theatre and Duke City Repertory Theatre. Her play StoneHeart, a "deconstructed Western" set in Ciudad Juárez, was named to The Kilroys List in 2019 and was a finalist for the O'Neill Center's National Playwrights Conference in 2019 and 2025. Escobar experienced the loss of her own mother before the idea for the play came to her in a dream. The plot has its basis in themes relating to fantasy and mythology.

The play had its initial readings in Indiana in 2010, at the ASSITEJ Festival in Denmark and Sweden in 2010, and at the Kahootz Theatre in 2009. It was staged in 2011 by the Manhattan Repertory Theatre and at the Words Afire Theatre Festival in New Mexico.

The Unbearable Likeness of Jo, Semity, & Jones The Unbearable Likeness of Jo, Semity, & Jones is described as an investigation into memory, personal identity and digiphrenia, in which a character named Jones deconstructs memory in the moments before her plane crashes. The play was read at Coffee and Whiskey Productions in Chicago in 2014, at The Flea Theater in New York City in 2015, and at the Movement Theatre Company in New York City in 2016. It had a workshop production at Dixon Place in 2015.

Sweep Sweep is described as a feminist play. The story follows two siblings who have the ability to travel through time. Much of the story concerns biblical figures such as Adam and Eve, which Escobar attributes in part to her upbringing; she attended Catholic school and explored spirituality alongside her family members.

Sweep had readings at the Brooklyn Generator in New York City in 2014 and at the Latinx Theatre Commons Carnaval of New Latina/o Work in Chicago in 2015. It was also workshopped at the Lincoln Center Theater's Director's Lab in 2016. The play was a finalist for the National Latino Playwriting Award and was produced in 2017 at the Aurora Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. She also wrote the book and lyrics (with composer Zenén Zeferino Huervo) for the youth musical All Strings Considered (also presented as Zoongoro Bailongo). She is also developing We Belong Together (also referred to as Ritchie), a musical built around the catalogue of Ritchie Valens.

Film and audio Escobar's short film MONAH premiered at the Austin Film Festival in 2022 and screened at festivals including the Brooklyn Sci-Fi Film Festival and the El Paso Plaza Classic Film Festival. Outstanding Service to Women on the Border Award, 2004

Personal life Escobar identifies as bisexual and as a queer Mexican writer. Spanish is her first language, and she has said that her "true self lives" in the writing of her native language. Besides writing, Escobar has expressed her love for the outdoors and for the visual arts, saying that she often paints.

She has served on the boards of the El Paso Holocaust Museum and Marfa Live Arts, and on the advisory committees of the Latinx Theatre Commons and the Climate Commons for Theatre and Performance.

Reflecting on her identity as a Jewish Latina playwright, Escobar has pushed back against the idea that Latinx playwrights must have some specifically Latinx quality to their work, stating: "As an artist and writer, all of my work was, is and will always be Mexican because that is what I am... Personally, I am more interested in being an artist than in defining my art."