Monet Hurst-Mendoza is an New York-based playwright and TV writer from Los Angeles. Her plays have been developed with Rising Circle Theater Collective, Astoria Performing Arts Center, WP Theater, The Public Theater, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and Long Wharf Theatre, among others.
Hurst-Mendoza is an alum of the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, R&D Group at The Civilians, Fresh Ground Pepper's Playground Playgroup, WP Theater Playwrights Lab, and the Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists. She has held residencies with The MITTEN Lab and SPACE on Ryder Farm, where she is a newly elected Board Member. She is a proud member of The Kilroys, Florida Studio Theatre’s Playwright Collective, The Dramatist Guild, and WGAE.
She served as writer/producer for seasons 21-24 of Law and Order: SVU. Episodes she co-wrote garnered nominations for the 2023 Edgar Allen Poe Award from Mystery Writers of America, and five nominations and three Imagen Award wins for positive portrayals of Latinos in media.
Her play, Torera, about the trials and celebrations of a female bullfighter in the male-dominated art form, recently received its world premiere at the Tony Award-winning Alley Theater in Houston, TX, and will be published by Concord Theatricals in 2024. She is currently working on an original pilot and two commissions for Westport Country Playhouse and The Kennedy Center.
While at MacDowell, she expanded her play cycle about working-class women in Yucatán, México. This new play will focus on the complications that arise when science, tourism, and spirituality collide in the town of Chicxulub, known for the impact crater that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
