Hudes was born in 1977 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a Jewish father and a Puerto Rican mother. They raised her in West Philadelphia, where she began composing music and writing. She studied at the Mary Louise Curtis Branch of Settlement Music School, taking piano lessons with Dolly Krasnopolsky. She has stated that although she is of "Puerto Rican and Jewish blood", she was "raised by two Puerto Rican parents." Her step-father was a Puerto Rican entrepreneur.
Hudes graduated from Philadelphias Central High School. She studied music composition at Yale University, where she earned her BA in 1999. She subsequently attended Brown University, where she received an MFA in playwriting in 2004. She is a resident writer at New Dramatists and a previous Page 73 Playwriting Fellow.
In 2012, Hudes was a visiting playwright at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She returned in 2014, serving as the Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Writing and Theater until 2017.

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