![\"\"](\"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/05\/Rivera-Lucky-copy-1024x768.jpg\")
Amanda E. Strauss, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections, is thrilled that the Performance & Entertainment area of collecting will be bolstered in such a remarkable way: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jos\u00e9 Rivera is such an important creative voice, and this collection will allow students and scholars to understand his writing process and to see firsthand how he brings his vision to fruition. This material will be heavily used by an international audience, and I\u2019m proud that Mr. Rivera chose the John Hay Library as his partner in preserving and making accessible his archival legacy. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Born in Puerto Rico in 1955, Mr. Rivera moved to Long Island, NY with his family when he was five years old. He grew up surrounded by books. Though his grandparents could not read or write, they were gifted storytellers, and he realized he wanted to be a writer in his adolescent years. In 1989, he took part in the Sundance Institute workshop led by Nobel Prize winning writer and journalist Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, whose magical realist style has been an influence on his work. His plays have been produced internationally and include \u201cSue\u00f1o<\/a>,\u201d which Mr. Rivera translated and adapted from the play by Pedro Calder\u00f3n de la Barca, recently produced this spring at Trinity Rep in Providence, RI and directed by Brown\/Trinity alumna Tatyana-Marie Carlo, MFA\u2019 20 d. Mr. Rivera has written many plays, two of which received Obie Awards: \u201cMarisol\u201d (1993) and \u201cReferences to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot\u201d (2001); other plays include \u201cThe Promise,\u201d \u201cEach Day Dies with Sleep,\u201d \u201cCloud Tectonics,\u201d \u201cThe Street of the Sun,\u201d \u201cSonnets for an Old Century,\u201d \u201cSchool of the Americas,\u201d \u201cBrainpeople,\u201d \u201cGiants Have Us in Their Book,\u201d and \u201cThe House of Ramon Iglesia.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Rivera visited Brown in April during which time he attended classes with English and Brown\/Trinity MFA students, toured the construction site of the new Performing Arts Center with Brown Arts Institute leadership, and met with members of the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. Patricia Ybarra, Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, explains the significance of this acquisition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bringing Jos\u00e9 Rivera’s papers to Brown will allow researchers and artists to experience the thinking, aesthetics, and creative process of one of the most important and contemporary Latinx playwrights. This collection expands the Brown University Library\u2019s commitment to diversity and inclusion in the arts by expanding their collections to include the papers of contemporary artists of color as a key part of the Hay Library\u2019s rich archive of contemporary plays and performance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Rivera’s plays have been published by Viking Press, Mentor Books, Dramatists Play Service, Dramatics magazine, Samuel French, Broadway Play Publishing, American Theatre magazine, Theatre Communications Group and Smith & Kraus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to playwriting, Mr. Rivera is also a gifted and accomplished screenwriter. His screenplay for the feature film \u201cThe Motorcycle Diaries\u201d was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2005, making him the first Puerto Rican writer to be nominated for an Academy Award. Also nominated for a BAFTA and a Writers Guild Award, \u201cThe Motorcycle Diaries\u201d won top writing awards in Spain and Argentina. His screenplay, based on Jack Kerouac\u2019s \u201cOn the Road,\u201d premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and was distributed nationally in the winter of 2013. His film \u201cTrade\u201d was the first film to premiere at the United Nations, and he has many other screenplays and screenwriting credits to his name including work in television such as, \u201cThe House of Ramon Iglesia; A.K.A. Pablo\u201d for PBS\u2019s \u201cAmerican Playhouse\u201d (Norman Lear, producer); \u201cThe Eddie Matos Story; Eerie, Indiana\u201d (co-creator and producer); \u201cGoosebumps; Mayhem\u201d (Bob Cooper, producer); \u201cThe Conquest\u201d (Ron Howard, producer); and \u201cLatino Roots,\u201d an untitled 10-hour limited series for HBO. Avery Willis Hoffman, Artistic Director of the Brown Arts Institute, says of Mr. Rivera\u2019s writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jos\u00e9 Rivera\u2019s seminal works for stage and screen have tackled some of the most pressing social issues of our time \u2014 violence, racism and misogyny, mental illness, poverty, climate change; as we work towards the opening of our new Performing Arts Center in late 2023, new creative collaborations and ongoing engagements with artists such as Jos\u00e9 will define the powerful ways in which art makes space for the exploration of challenging topics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Rivera is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Sundance Institute and has been a creative advisor for Screenwriting Labs in Utah, Jordan and India. A member of the LAByrinth Theatre Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre, he leads a weekly writing workshop in New York City, where he lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cataloging of the contents of the collection is ongoing. Requests to view the collection can be made online through the John Hay Library\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lauded contemporary Latinx playwright\u2019s papers will enrich the Hay\u2019s holdings by artists of color in its distinctive Performance & Entertainment collecting area The John Hay Library has acquired the papers of award-winning Puerto Rican-American playwright and screenwriter Jos\u00e9 Rivera. Serving as a foundational collection within the Hay\u2019s Performance & Entertainment collecting direction, this trove of … John Hay Library Acquires Jos\u00e9 Rivera Papers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,32,6,35,8,155,36,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements-special-collections","category-collections","category-featured-resources","category-general-interest","category-hay","category-home-page","category-new-acquisitions","category-new-resources-services","category-special-collections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}