Erlina Ortiz
Erlina Ortiz (she/her/ella) was an apprentice at Interact during the 2012/2013 season. She is currently Resident Playwright and Co-Artistic Director at Power Street Theatre, and serves as secretary of the board for Theatre Philadelphia.
In 2018 her play Las Mujeres received The Bonaly Award for Creation of Community Joy and in 2019 Morir Sonyando was nominated for six Barrymore Awards including Outstanding New Play. In Fall 2021 Young Money premiered at Azuka Theatre and went on to receive the ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Citation. In 2022 her play La Egoista was selected for the LTC Comedy Carnaval in Denver going on to win the 2022 National Latine Playwriting Award, premiering at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Skylight Theatre and being featured on the 2023 Kilroy's WEB. It will have its Philadelphia premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company in October 2024.
Erlina has embarked on the Amtrak Writer’s residency where she traveled across the US in an Amtrak sleeper car, the Signal Fire Residency Outpost Residency where she lived on the side of a mountain for a week, and in 2019, she gave the Keynote Address at the Delaware Writer’s Conference on the importance of nurturing your artistic community. Erlina was a member of NEXUS with New York Stage and Film and is a two-time recipient of the Leeway Art and Change Grant and the 2021 Leeway Transformation Award. In 2023, she was named as a Dramatist Guild Foundation Catalyst Fellow. Erlina has taught playwriting with the University of the Arts, Power Street Theatre, and Blue Stoop. Her new musical, Siluetas, was developed for the O’Neill National Musical Theatre Conference and premiered with Power Street Theatre in June 2024.
She is grateful to have had the opportunity to be an InterAct apprentice as that was a great stepping stone for her career, and InterAct's mission of socially conscious theatre has been vital to the formation of her own personal mission as an artist. Erlina hopes to continue to make important work in Philadelphia and beyond.
Learn more about Erlina here: https://www.erlinaortiz.com/