Jose Rivera

Jose Rivera has received two OBIE Awards for Playwriting (for MARISOL and REFERENCES TO SALVADOR DALI MAKE ME HOT, both produced by the Public Theatre, New York), a Whiting Foundation Award, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, and a Kennedy Center Grant. On a Fulbright Arts Fellowship he was writer-in-residence at the Royal Court Theatre, London. In 1989 he studied with Gabriel Garcia Marquez at Sundance. His plays have premiered off-Broadway and have been seen at virtually every major theatre in the country as well as theatres in France, England, Romania, Peru, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Scotland, and Canada. They include THE HOUSE OF RAMON IGLESIA, THE PROMISE, EACH DAY DIES WITH SLEEP, CLOUD TECTONICS, SUEÑO, THE STREET OF THE SUN, GIANTS HAVE US IN THEIR BOOKS, SONNETS FOR AN OLD CENTURY, BRAINPEOPLE, ADORATION OF THE OLD WOMAN, SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS, MASSACRE (SING TO YOUR CHILDREN), BOLEROS FOR THE DISENCHANTED, ANDREW AND PABLO AT THE ALTAR OF WORDS, and HUMAN EMOTIONAL PROCESS. In 2005 Rivera was nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award for his first produced screenplay “The Motorcycle Diaries” (Walter Salles, director) and for which he won Spain’s Goya Award and Argentina’s top screenwriting prize. His film “Trade” was the first film to premiere at the United Nations. He worked on and was fired from “Letters to Juliet.” Rivera has written screen adaptations of ON THE ROAD (Walter Salles, director), THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO (Walter Salles, director), THREE APPLES FELL FROM HEAVEN (Cherien Dabis, director), YESTERDAY (Sir Alan Parker, director), FACE VALUE (with Rachel Weisz), PATRIOTIC TREASON (with Josh Brolin), DIEGO RISING (Selma Hayak, producer), and AMERICAN RUST (Walter Salles, director). “Celestina” (based on CLOUD TECTONICS, with Sona Tatoyan) will mark Rivera’s feature film directing debut. Rivera has served as a creative advisor for the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and has been on the boards of directors of the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, PEN Center West, and Theatre Communications Group. For more than twelve years he has led the Los Angeles based First Tuesday Writing Group. He is a member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre and the LAByrinth Theatre Company. He is at work on his first novel, LOVE MAKES THE CITY CRUMBLE and lives in New York with his wife, actress Sona Tatoyan.