This series includes original and revised scripts in both paper and electronic format for a little over half of Irene Fornés' work, including some of her earliest plays and her last working play, Rue de Fleurus (concerning Gertrude Stein). It also includes a script for Minuski, a previously-unknown work, and La Plaza Chica, Fornés' translation and adaptation of her play Abingdon Square into Spanish. In addition, there are scores for some of her plays with songs; a libretto for an opera; and scripts and staging notes for Fornés' directing, translating, and adapting of other writers' plays or stories (such as Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Drowning). There are numerous drafts or versions of Fornes' scripts written, edited, or adapted for different productions of a play, or revised after the completion of a run of a particular production. Many of the scripts are not complete, and most of them have Fornés' handwritten--often extensive--annotations and revisions. Production records for various stagings of her own plays and productions she directed of others' works include memos, notes, set designs, cast lists, and calls for auditions.

This series contains diverse writings and drawings on paper recording Fornés' internal artistic processes and ideas. It includes notes, scenarios, stories and character studies; dialogs, monologues and individual lines; ideas for plays, films and dances; journal and diary entries; fragments of narratives and numerous other types of writings in process; and a small amount of correspondence. Some of the writings are typed, and many are handwritten. Formats range from notebooks to the backs of envelopes and smaller scraps. Almost none of the items are dated, with the exception of a few materials from the 1980s to the 1990s. Most of the materials originally received in labeled folders retain their original folder titles (these are enclosed by quotation marks); the remaining materials have been placed in folders labeled "miscellaneous short notes."

This series contains documents pertaining to Fornés' professional activities, business, and finances, as well as some materials on her personal business and finances. These include correspondence concerning productions of her plays, requests to stage her works, project and grant proposals, contracts, statements from her agent, pay stubs, calendars, schedules, itineraries, property tax and income records, invoices for maintenance fees for her New York City condominium and for renovations to her home in Delaware County, New York.

Materials in this series document administrative and internal workings of one of the oldest Latino theater companies in the United States, through memos, budgets, production schedules and cast lists for INTAR productions. Fornés had a long association with the organization in a number of capacities, most notably as director and teacher of its playwrights-in-residence program.

This series contains government documents and applications for government assistance, and documents and correspondence concerning emigration from Cuba and immigration to the United States, including Irene Fornés' naturalization certificate. Also included are affidavits and requests by Fornés and members of her extended family to Cuban and U.S. authorities to facilitate emigration of relatives in Cuba to the United States. In addition, there are applications by Fornés' mother, Carmen Collado Fornés for public housing and her food stamp identification cards. Nongovernmental official documents such as a travel identification card for American Youth Hostels, Inc. are also part of the series.

This series contains letters and cards from Irene Fornés' family and photocopies of same, and letters between Fornés and her friends and family. These include some of the letters that Fornés drew upon as sources for two of her plays. Family correspondents in this series include Carmen Collado Fornés, Ramon Collado, Rafael Fornés, and "Pepe."

This series consists of students' handwritten, typewritten, or mimeographed scenarios; scripts for plays and playlets; stories; and poems. In addition, the series includes flyers, correspondence, exercise instructions, participant lists, play notes, and drawings that pertain to, or that arose from, Irene Fornés' teaching and playwriting workshops. She briefly taught elementary school students, but the bulk of her students were college students and adults who were emerging playwrights. Because Fornés' method for teaching plays included close collaboration, a number of these scripts were co-written by several different students as well as with Fornés herself (Meche is one clear example). In addition to those who received formal instruction from Fornés through workshops, lectures or classes, the series also includes materials from informal "students" of hers who may never have been enrolled in any of the courses she taught--aspiring playwrights whom she seems to have mentored or for whose work she seems to have provided criticism.

This series includes a wide-ranging collection of materials gathered as research for Fornés' plays on subjects as varied as fortune-telling, President John F. Kennedy's assassination, Fidel Castro, and silent films, as well as articles documenting Fornés' career and the reception of her plays, her interests in drama and art, and her extensive travels, as well as those of her mother. Items include biographical portraits and transcripts of interviews with Fornés; newspaper and magazine clippings; play and book reviews; programs and announcements for, and invitations to, plays, dances, musical performances, art exhibits and openings; maps and travel ephemera; catalogs; posters; photographs; song lyrics; and recipes. Most of those materials originally received in labeled folders have retained their original folder titles (indicated by by quotation marks).