* Paul Hidalgo-Durand; Dancer, Promising Playwright

Paul Hidalgo-Durand, 29, a promising playwright whose musical “Echo Park” was read at the Mark Taper Forum last year and who danced in the movie “Grease II” and the TV series “Fame.” A veteran of the Latino Theatre Lab at the Los Angeles Actors Theatre in Hollywood, he began writing sketches there. When the Actors Theatre moved downtown to become the Los Angeles Theater Center, he became an assistant director there. Although widely praised, “Echo Park,” about Hidalgo-Durand’s experiences growing up as a Chicano in Los Angeles, was not produced because of the expenses involved in a musical. In New York City on Tuesday of the complications of AIDS.