A 2026 Guggenheim Fellow in Drama & Performance Art, award-winning playwright Elaine Romero has been defined by the Sonoran Desert and the friction of living on the U.S./ Mexico border. Romero’s work challenges the construct of time as her characters live against the backdrop of history. Significant projects include the Border Trilogy (Wetback, Mother of Exiles, and Title IX) and the War Pentalogy (Graveyard of Empires, A Work of Art, Revoluciones/Revolutions, When Reason Sleeps, and Martínez in Taos), which lyrically expose national dreams, nightmares, and regret.
Professor in the School of Theatre, Film, & Television at the University of Arizona, author of 120 plays, her lineages include New Mexico and Maria Irene Fornés. The Arizona Theatre Company’s RomeroFest featured 17 of her pieces with the national and international partners. Notable works include Secret Things, Barrio Hollywood, ¡Curanderas! Serpents of the Clouds, the Dalia Lama is Not Welcome Here, Modern Slave, Hoverland, and Walk into the Sea.
Romero’s work has been published by Dramatists Play Service, Vintage Books, Concord Theatricals, Cambridge University Press, Samuel French, Simon & Schuster, and Routledge among others. Awards include TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist in Residence Grant, the NEA/TCG Theatre Artists in Residence grant, the Udall Foundation for Public Policy (Fellow), Edgerton New Play Award, the Sprenger-Lang New History Play Contest, Chicano/Latino Literary Award, Blue INK Playwrights Award.
Residences include O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Sundance Playwrights Retreat, Hermitage Artists Retreat, and Headlands Artists Retreat.
Playwright-in-Residence at Arizona Theatre Company and Festival Director of the National Latine Playwrights Award & Festival, Romero has benefitted greatly from commissions with ATC and theatres such as the Kennedy Center, Magic Theatre, the Alley Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, and the Goodman Theatre.
Romero holds her MFA in Playwriting from UC Davis and a BA in Creative Writing from Linfield University.