Josefina López
American playwright
Josefina López (born 1969, San Luis Potosí, Mexico) is a Chicana playwright, perhaps best known as the author of the play (and co-author of the screenplay) Real Women Have Curves. López is also the Founding Artistic Director of the CASA 0101 theater located in Boyle Heights, California, which began in 2000.
Early life
López was born in 1969 in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and at age five, she emigrated with her family to the United States, where they settled in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts before obtaining a BA in film and screenwriting from Columbia College Chicago, and an MFA in screenwriting from the School of Theater, Film and Television at UCLA. She also graduated with a Supreme Diploma from Le Cordon Bleu.
López was undocumented for 13 years before she received amnesty in 1987 and eventually became a U.S. Citizen in 1995. López is the recipient of a number of other awards and accolades, including a formal recognition from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer's 7th Annual "Women Making History" banquet in 1998 and a screenwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council in 2001. She and Real Women Have Curves co-author George LaVoo won the Humanitas Prize for Screenwriting in 2002, The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Award from Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn in 2003, and the Artist-in-Residency grant from the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group for 2007.
Career
After having over 100 productions of her plays run throughout the United States, Josefina López is one of today's preeminent Chicana writers. She has written several plays such as Simply Maria, Or the American Dream; Confessions of Women From East L.A.; Boyle Heights; Lola Goes To Roma; Food For The Dead; Unconquered Spirits; Queen of the Rumba and Real Women Have Curves.
She is the co-screenwriter of the film version of her play Real Women Have Curves (2002), starring America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Lupe Ontiveros, and Ingrid Oliu (Stand and Deliver).
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