 Locally in New York City, as the director of the INTAR Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Lab in the 1980s and early '90s, she mentored a generation of Latin playwrights, including Cherríe Moraga, Migdalia Cruz, Nilo Cruz, Caridad Svich, and Eduardo Machado.She received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Bates College in 1992.Theater luminaries such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning writers Tony Kushner ("Angels in America"), Paula Vogel ("How I Learned to Drive)", Lanford Wilson ("Talley's Folly)", Sam Shepard ("Buried Child"), and Edward Albee "(A Delicate Balance)" credit Fornés as an inspiration and influence.