Edit Villarreal was born in Brownsville, Texas, where she was raised by her maternal grandmother, Marta Garza, until the age of 6. Her school years were spent in San Antonio, but she returned to Brownsville to spend each summer with Marta Garza. Villarreal received a BA in Theater from UC Berkeley in 1967, and an MFA in Playwriting from Yale in 1986.

My Visits with MGM (My Grandmother Marta) is heavily autobiographical, crafted in 1988 from a long poem written in response to Marta Garza’s death. Marta Garza emigrated from Monterrey, Mexico, Marta Garza’s husband did serve as a border guard, and Villarreal’s mother worked long hours as a nurse. MGM was first produced in 1989 in the Hispanic Playwrights Project at Southcoast Repertory Theatre, and has since been produced all over the country--in both English and Spanish versions, and even as a radio play. Villarreal is given to revision, and Draft 5 of the play was anthologized in 1992 in Shattering the Myth: Plays by Hispanic Women. While Draft 13 is reportedly more frequently produced, the anthologized version is the one read by Echo.

MGM is frequently praised for its authenticity—both in language and in the relationships among its characters. Part of Villarreal’s power as a Chicana writer is her evocation of the duality experienced by the children of immigrants and their need to discover and embrace an identity that is both and neither. Part of her power as a woman writer is her reclamation of foremothers as a source of guidance. Both truths are suggested by Villarreal’s own explication of her play’s spine : that Marta Feliz comes to understand Marta Grande’s journey so that she can undertake her own.

Villarreal currently serves as a professor in UCLA’s theatre department. She recently co-wrote two episodes of Carlos Avila’s 1997 PBS series, Foto-Novelas, and Different Stages in Austin staged a full production of another of her plays, Marriage is Forever, in April 2005.

[March 2005]

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