[3] She studied at the Mary Louise Curtis Branch of Settlement Music School, taking piano lessons with Dolly Krasnopolsky.

[5] Hudes graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, and then studied music composition at Yale University as a first generation college student,[6] where she earned her BA degree in 1999.

In October 2016, a new musical she wrote along with singer/songwriter Erin McKeown titled Miss You Like Hell opened at the La Jolla Playhouse, directed by Lear deBessonet and starring Daphne Rubin-Vega.

[16] The play premiered at Page 73 Productions at the Off-Broadway Culture Project in 2006,[17] and ran at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia in 2006.

[18][19] The New York Times reviewer wrote that the play was a "rare and rewarding thing: a theater work that succeeds on every level, while creating something new.

In 2012, her play Water by the Spoonful, which returns to the characters in Elliot, won the Pulitzer Prize after its premiere at the Hartford Stage Company.

Water by the Spoonful consists of multiple scenes that take place in an online chat room and in the real world with face-to-face interaction.

[27] Originally performed by 56 orchestral musicians, three actors, and eight dancers, The Good Peaches is a "girl versus nature musical play.

Called "An immigration musical for the new Trump era" by the LA Times,[31] the play is about a mother and daughter traveling across the country for seven days and addressing their fractured relationship.