Reading Series, Fall 2007

JOSE RIVERA, playwright and screenwriter

José Rivera is a recipient of two OBIE Awards for Playwriting (for Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot , both at The Joseph Papp Public Theatre), a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a Whiting Foundation Award, a McKnight Fellowship, a 2005 Norman Lear Writing Award, and a 2005 Impact Award.   He studied with Gabriel Garcia Marquez at Sundance and was writer-in-residence at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

Theater productions include The House of Ramon Iglesia (Ensemble Studio Theatre, American Playhouse), Marisol (Humana Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage Co.), Cloud Tectonics (Humana Festival, Playwrights Horizons, co-production Teatro Vista and Goodman Theatre), References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (South Coast Rep), Each Day Dies With Sleep (Circle Rep, Berkeley Rep, Teatro Vista), Sonnets for an Old Century (Greenway Arts Alliance), Sueno (Hartford Stage, Manhattan Class Company), Giants Have Us In Their Books (Magic Theatre, INTAR Theatre), Maricela de la Luz Lights the World (La Jolla Playhouse), The Promise (Ensemble Studio Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Center), The Street of the Sun (Mark Taper Forum), Adoration of the Old Woman (La Jolla Playhouse), and School of the Americas (co-production Joseph Papp Public Theatre and LAByrinth Theatre).  Massacre (Sing to Your Children) was commissioned by LAByrinth Theatre and premiered in spring 2007 (co-production Teatro Vista and Goodman Theatre).

The screenplay for his first produced film The Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles, director) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, a BAFTA Award, and a Writers Guild Award, and received Spain's Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. For television he co-created and produced Eerie, Indiana (NBC). In 2006 he wrote and directed the short film The Tape Recorder (with Sona Tatoyan). In progress are screen adaptations of On the Road (Francis Ford Coppola, producer), Composition in Black and White (Sony), The State Boys Rebellion (Dreamworks), and Three Apples Fell from Heaven (Door/Key).  Trade (Lionsgate Pictures, with Kevin Kline), for which Rivera wrote the screenplay, was released in September 2007. Celestina, based on Cloud Tectonics, will mark his debut as a feature film director.