Maria Clara Machado

Maria Clara Machado was a Brazilian playwriter, who specialized on plays for children. She was born in 1921, in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, and died in Rio de Janeiro in 2001, where she lived most of her life. Daughter of writer Aníbal Machado, she studied theater in Paris; on her return to Brazil, she founded the acting school O Tablado, in Rio de Janeiro. O Tablado was responsible for the formation of many Brazilian actors, and was the laboratory where she directed her own plays.

Maria Clara Machado. National Archives of Brazil.

Among those, Pluft o Fantasminha (Pluft the Little Ghost) (1955), A Bruxinha que Era Boa (The Little Witch who was Good), Maroquinhas Fru-Fru, O Rapto das Cebolinhas (The Kidnapping of the Onions), A Menina e o Vento (The Girl and the Wind), O Cavalinho Azul (The Blue Little Horse), Tribobó City, and many others.

Machado received a number of awards including the Prêmio Machado de Assis from the Brazilian Academy of Letters.