Judges

MATÍAS ARMAS LAGO was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is known in the theatrical world as Dino Armas. He is a teacher with over thirty years of experience. One of the most prolific Uruguayan playwrights, his works have premiered in Uruguay, Argentina, the United States, Spain, Italy, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia. Some of his dramatic texts have been translated and published in English, French, Italian and Russian. Some of how many awards and recognitions include: Best Author Award in the Uruguayan Society of Actors (SUA) contest with the play Los soles amargos (1981), the First Municipal Prize with Feliz día, papá (1988), Best National Author Award selected by the theater section of the Montevideo newspaper El País; Florencio Award for the Best Text by a National Author with the work Se ruega no enviar coronas (1993). Other prizes obtained are Silver Morosoli Award for career achievement (2006), Florencio 2015 for fifty years of career, Golden Candelabra Award granted by the Uruguayan branch of B’nai B’rith (2015), First Prize in competition Prize for Literature of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) in the Drama, Unpublished Theater category with Ave Mater (2011), First Mention in the AGADU-COFONTE Dramaturgy contest with Lucas o el contrato(2014) and, recently, First Prize in the playwriting category of unpublished works at the National Literature Awards (2020) for his work El Río and the Florencio Award for Best Author of the 2020-2021 seasons from the Association of Theater Critics of Uruguay for Katia y Klaus. His work has been the subject of literary study and analysis, such as the one published in Uruguay by Professor Lourdes Martínez Puig (Themes and main characters in the works “Raffle the heart” and “The rare” by Dino Armas) and in the United States by the Professor Gabriela Christie Toletti of the University of Norfolk, Virginia (Migration and Dictatorship on Stage).Dino Armas continues to write, and premiere works up to the present.

JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA BARRIENTOS, holds a doctorate in Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), is a Research Professor at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), director of Annexes of the Literature Magazine, postgraduate professor at the Carlos III University Madrid, Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts (Cuba) and Principal Researcher of the National Research and Development Plan’s “Analysis of current playwriting in Spanish” (ADAE). A specialist in theater theory, he is the author of more than three hundred publications, including books, several translated into Arabic and French, such as Drama and Time, How a Play is Analyzed, Theater and Fiction, Obstinate Reasoning, Drama and Narration, Anatomy of Drama or Seven Playwrights.

LUISA ANGÉLICA SHEREZADA VICIOSO (Chiqui) was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. She is a poet, essayist and playwright. She holds a BA in Sociology and History of Latin America from Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Master’s degree in Education, from Columbia University and studies in Cultural Administration, from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, in Rio de Janeiro. She has written the poetry books: Voyage from the Water (1981); A strange hoot brought the wind (1985); Intern/A/ment (1992); Eve/Zion/Is (2007); Songs of the Legal Passion (2011), and The Light of Certain Hours (2015). As well as the essays: Something to Say: Essays on Women’s Literature (1983, 1992), the first text of feminist literary criticism in the Dominican Republic; Julia de Burgos la Nuestra (1983 and 1990); Salomé Ureña de Henríquez: One Hundred Years After Teaching (1997); Hostos and His Views on Women (1998), among many others, and the plays: Wish-ky Sour, (National Theater Award, 1996, the first woman to receive it); Salomé U: Letters to an Absence, 2001, (Cassandra Award); La Carretera (based on the short story by Juan Bosch La Mujer); Sleeplessness, dialogue between Salomé Ureña and Emily Dickinson; Magdalena, theater dance; Vilezas; and Andrea Evangelina, based on the life of the first Dominican doctor. Also the anthology: The Theater according to Chiqui Vicioso, a study on gender. Since 1986 she has published a national column in the Listín Diario and El Nacional, as well as a monthly essay in the Areíto cultural supplement. Between 1981 and 1983 she collaborated with the cultural supplements “Here” and “Enchanted quantity”, which she created and directed. She is a recipient of the Gold Medal for Merit for Women (1992); and of the Order of Don Quixote of the National Hispanic Society, Sigma Delta Pi, in 2004. She was founder of the Circle of Women Poets; organizer of the first Décima and Poetry of Peasant Women contest and of the Book Fairs dedicated to the poets Aida Cartagena, Carmen Natalia Martínez Bonilla and Julia de Burgos, as well as co-coordinator of the fairs dedicated to Camila Henríquez Ureña and José Martí . She worked for 22 years in the United Nations, as a national officer of the Women’s and Education Programs; and as a consultant and evaluator of programs with women, for UNICEF, UNESCO, UNIFEM, and FNUAP. Her work has been translated into English, French, Chinese, Hindi, and Dutch, among others.

MERCEDES MELO PEREIRA was born in Havana, Cuba. She graduated in Philology from the University of Havana, she has been a professor of Literature in the faculty of Arts and Letters of this institution since 1978 and has led creative writing workshops since 1983. Her book of short stories Hypermestra’s Scope (Unión, 2006) received the Luis Felipe Rodríguez Prize 2005, awarded by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, and the National Prize for Literary Criticism 2006. With the story “Behind the Gate of Quicksilver” she won the Prize from the Jorge Guillén Foundation and the Villa del Libro de Urueña in 2021, and with «Examination of the work of Alberto G.», the Prize of La Gaceta de Cuba in 2000. With the book of poems Bitácora she received the Digdora Alonso Centennial Extraordinary Poetry Prize in 2021.  She has compiled selections of poetry such as Where Too Much Light (Lengua de Víbora, 1997) and, co-authored with Raydel Araoz, Graffiti: Signs on Paper (Extramuros, 2005) and Auditoriums: Sample Book, Essay, Historicization and Prediction of Lyrical Ruptures Through a Century and a Quarter of Poetry (Capiro, 2017). She has published numerous articles on literature, cinema, and theater, as well as stories and poems. She is part of the volume Analysis of Current Spanish Playwriting (Antígona, 2016) with a study on the works of Antonio Álamo. She has worked on film projects as a screenwriter, dialogue writer, designer and actress, and on theater projects as a researcher and literary consultant.

ANDREA OJEDA is a native of Mexico City and part of a musical family, Andrea studied Dramatic Literature and Theater at UNAM where she participated in various theatrical, film and television projects. She emigrated to the United States in 1999 to settle with her family. She writes for Contratiempo magazine in Chicago, where she is now a member of the editorial board. Since 2015, she has been an ensemble member of Aguijón Theater Company of Chicago. Andrea currently resides in Amsterdam with her family, where she continues her theatrical and musical endeavors while trying obstinately to learn the peculiarities of the Dutch language and culture.