Bio English
Mónica Raya
Scenographer
Born in Mexico City in 1965, Mónica Raya attended her first Scenic Design Master Class in Wales in 1989 under the supervision of British designer John Bury, working on the design for Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry.
Graduated as an architect at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she started her M.F.A at the Yale School of Drama where she graduated in 1993 with a full design for Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute as a thesis project.
While living in Washington D.C. (1993- l995) Mónica Raya worked for the Source Theatre, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts , the Puertorrican Travelling Theatre and as the resident scenic designer for the Gala Hispanic Theatre. Back in Mexico, she was awarded the Beca para Jóvenes creadores en diseño escénico 1996-97 by the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Since 1995 she has been teaching scenic design as a full-time professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico where she was awarded the Distinción Universidad Nacional para Jóvenes académicos 2000 for Artistic Achievement.
She has worked as scenic designer in more than 90 productions and her work has been appreciated at the Compañía Nacional de Teatro, the Compañía Nacional de Ópera. and at the Festival Internacional Cervantino.
She was appointed Artistic Director of Theatre at the Performance Center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico from 2004 to 2008 where she produced more than 70 contemporary plays.
Internationally, Mónica Raya´s designs have been exposed at the Prague Quadriennale of International Scenic Design 2003 and in 2007 she had the honor to participate as a member of the international jury. She was awarded with the Gold Medal for Costume Design at the World Stage Design 2005 in Toronto, Canada and with a Gold Medal for Outstanding Scenographer at the World Stage Design 2009 in Seoul, Korea. She belongs to Mexico´s Sistema Nacional de Creadores and has just started her doctoral studies at Aalto University in Helsinki.
