Artists' Fellowship - 1988
Playwriting/Screenwriting
Artist Statement:
The fellowship allowed me to participate directly in two productions of "The Promise" in LA and New York. I was able to complete a new draft of my play "Each Day Dies with Sleep," as well as rewrite my one-act "Slaughter in the Lake," which was produced at EST.
More about the Artist:
Nominated for 2005 Oscar for Best Screenplay for "The Motorcycle Diaries."
Jose Rivera was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1955, and now lives in Los Angeles. His style has been called 'Magic Realism' (a term first concocted by American literary scholars to describe the work of Latin-American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Amado, Jose Luis Borges and Carlos Fuentes, all of whom tap into a texture of existence seemingly more exotic and meaningful than that recognized by busy Americans.) Rivera resists the label, insisting that all aspects of life are magical if looked at from the right perspective. "It's all in the details," maintains Rivera. "If you choose the details of everyday life carefully enough, and examine them with enough clarity, they can seem magical on their own. Like Garcia Marquez says, the human condition is so absurd, and people are so outrageous, that insane things happen on a daily basis. All you really have to do is record them." Rivera's works include "The House of Ramon Iglesia," "The Promise," "Each Day Dies With Sleep," "Giants Have Us in Their Books" and "Cloud Tectonics". Honors include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship in Playwriting, a Whiting Foundation Writers' Award. "Marisol," which is jointly published by Dramatists Play Service, American Theatre Magazine and Theatre Communications Group, include a 1993 Obie Award for Outstanding Play and six Drama-Logue Awards including Best Play.
|
