Nilo Cruz | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Matanzas, Cuba |
| Occupation | Playwright, pedagogue |
| Nationality | Cuban-American |
| Education | Miami Dade College (BA) Brown University (MFA) |
| Notable works | Two Sisters and a Piano |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2003) |
Nilo Cruz is a Cuban-American playwright and pedagogue. With his award of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Anna in the Tropics , he became the second Latino so honored, after Nicholas Dante. [1]
Cruz was born in 1960 to Tina and Nilo Cruz, Sr. in Matanzas, Cuba. The family immigrated to Little Havana in Miami, Florida, in 1970 on a Freedom Flight, and eventually naturalised to the United States. His interest in theater began with acting and directing in the early 1980s. He studied theater first at Miami-Dade Community College, later moving to New York City, where Cruz studied under fellow Cuban María Irene Fornés. Fornes recommended Cruz to Paula Vogel who was teaching at Brown University where he would later receive his M.F.A. in 1994.
In 2001, Cruz served as the playwright-in-residence for the New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he wrote Anna in the Tropics . Rafael de Acha, artistic director of the New Theatre, produced and directed the world premiere performance of Anna in the Tropics, which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Steinberg Award for Best New Play.
After the play was awarded the Pulitzer and Steinberg awards, Emily Mann directed a production at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, and the play then had its Broadway premiere with Jimmy Smits in the lead role.
Some of the theatres that have developed and performed Cruz’s works include New York's Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Pasadena Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, The Alliance, New Theatre, Florida Stage, and the Coconut Grove Playhouse.
Cruz wrote the book of the Frank Wildhorn-Jack Murphy musical Havana. Its scheduled world premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse has been delayed by the theatre's declaration of bankruptcy in 2010. [2]
Cruz has translated plays into both Spanish and English. His adaptation and translation of La vida es sueño ( Life Is a Dream ) in English premiered at South Coast Repertory in 2007. [3] He translated the script for Hamlet, Prince of Cuba at Asolo Repertory Theatre into Spanish for the 2012 production that ran simultaneously in English and Spanish on alternating nights. [4]
Cruz has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including two NEA/TCG National Theatre Artist Residency grants, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, San Francisco's W. Alton Jones award, a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award, and a USA Artist Fellowship.
Cruz is a frequent collaborator with Peruvian-American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. To date, they have completed a set of orchestral songs, La centinela y la paloma (The Keeper and the Dove), for soprano Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (premiered under the baton of Joana Carneiro in February 2011); The Saint Maker for soprano Jessica Rivera, mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and the Berkeley Symphony in May 2013; Journey of the Shadow for narrator and ensemble of eleven players (San Francisco Chamber Orchestra premiering in April 2013); the Conquest Requiem for soprano, baritone, orchestra, and chorus for the Houston Symphony under the baton of Andrés Orozco-Estrada in May 2017 which will be recorded by the Nashville Symphony in November 2022 for the Naxos label; and Cinco Lunas de Lorca (The Five Moons of Lorca) as a digital short for countertenor, choir, and piano for the Los Angeles Opera. Their newest project is El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), a two-act opera commissioned by San Diego Opera and San Francisco Opera with a premiere in October 2022.
Cruz penned the libretto to composer Jimmy López's opera Bel Canto which had its world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on December 7, 2015. [5]
Cruz's most recent work is Bathing in Moonlight, a world premiere featuring Raul Mendez, Priscilla Lopez, Hannia Guillen, Frankie J. Alvarez, Michael Rudko, and Katty Velasquez. Directed by Emily Mann, Bathing in Moonlight ran September 9 - October 9, 2016, at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Bathing in Moonlight is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and a 2016 Greenfield Prize.
Cruz is an alumnus of New Dramatists and has taught playwriting at Brown University, the University of Iowa, and Yale University. He currently lives in New York City and Miami.
In 2003, Cruz received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Anna in the Tropics.
In 2009, Cruz received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.
In 2010, Cruz was awarded the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from Whittier College. [6]
Donald Margulies is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.
Paula Vogel is an American playwright. She is known for her provocative explorations of complex social and political issues. Much of her work delves into themes of psychological trauma, abuse, and the complexities of human relationships. She has received the Pulitzer Prize as well as nominations for two Tony Awards. In 2013 she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Ethan Phillips is an American actor. He is best known for his television roles as Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager and PR man Pete Downey on Benson.
Theresa Rebeck is an American playwright, television writer, and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award. In 2012, she received the Athena Film Festival Award for Excellence as a Playwright and Author of Films, Books, and Television. She is a 2009 recipient of the Alex Awards. Her works have influenced American playwrights by bringing a feminist edge in her old works.
Regina Taylor is an American actress and playwright. She has won several awards throughout her career, including a Golden Globe Award and NAACP Image Award. In July 2017, Taylor was announced as the new Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theater at Fordham University.
Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020, she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name. Eurydice was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Michael Cristofer is an American actor, playwright, and filmmaker. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for The Shadow Box in 1977. From 2015 to 2019, he played the role of Phillip Price in the television series Mr. Robot.
Mabel Davis "Tina" Howe was an American playwright. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Howe's best-known works include Museum, The Art of Dining, Painting Churches, Coastal Disturbances, and Pride's Crossing.
Anna in the Tropics is a play by Nilo Cruz. It won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Emily Betsy Mann is an American director, playwright and screenwriter. She served as the artistic director and resident playwright of the McCarter Theatre Center from 1990 to 2020.
John Augustin Ortiz is an American actor. He is known for his antagonist role as Arturo Braga in Fast & Furious (2009) and Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Clyde in Jack Goes Boating (2010), which earned him a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor. He is also an artistic director/co-founder of the LAByrinth Theater Company.
María Irene Fornés was a Cuban-American playwright, theater director, and teacher who worked in off-Broadway and experimental theater venues in the last four decades of the twentieth century. Her plays range widely in subject matter, but often depict characters with aspirations that belie their disadvantages. Fornés, who went by the name "Irene", received nine Obie Theatre Awards in various categories and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for 1990.
Repertorio Español is a theater company founded in 1968 by Producer Gilberto Zaldívar and Artistic Director René Buch to introduce the best of Latin American, Spanish, and Hispanic American theater to broad-ranging audiences in New York City and around the country. Robert Weber Federico joined the company two years later as Resident Designer and Associate Artistic Producer remained with Repertorio until 2022 when he retired as Executive Director.
Rajiv Joseph is an American playwright. He was named a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, and he won an Obie Award for Best New American Play for his play Describe the Night.
Sharon Langston Ott is a director, producer and educator who worked in regional theaters and opera throughout the United States. Two plays she directed, A Fierce Longing and Amlin Gray's How I Got That Story, each won an Obie award after their New York runs.
Ronald Burt Ribman is an American author, poet and playwright.
Tony Sancho is an American stage and film / television actor based in Los Angeles best known for his lead role as Isaac in Tadeo Garcia's debut film On the Downlow also featuring starring Michael Cortez as Angel.
Martyna Majok is a Polish-born American playwright who received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Cost of Living. She emigrated to the United States as a child and grew up in New Jersey. Majok studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and Juilliard School. Her plays are often politically engaged, feature dark humor, and experiment with structure and time.
Gary Perez is an American television, film, and stage actor.
Juliette Carrillo is an American theatre director, playwright, and filmmaker. She has directed plays and musicals at the Denver Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theater, South Coast Repertory, Mark Taper Forum, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Magic Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Arizona Theater Company, and the Actor's Theatre of Louisville.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
