José Rivera (playwright)

José Rivera
José Rivera, 2009
Born	(1955-03-24) March 24, 1955 (age 61) San Juan, Puerto Rico
Occupation	Screenwriter, playwright
Ethnicity	Puerto Rican
Period	1983–present
Notable works	Marisol The Motorcycle Diaries
Notable awards	Obie Award, Goya Award, Academy Award (nom.)

José Rivera (born March 24, 1955) is a playwright and the first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Oscar.

Rivera was born in the Santurce section of San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1955. He was raised in Arecibo where he lived until 1959. Rivera's family migrated from Puerto Rico when he was 4 years old, and moved to New York City. They settled down in Long Island, whose small town environment would be of an influence to him in the future. His parents were very religious and he grew up in a household whose only book was the Bible. His family enjoyed telling stories and he learned a lot by hearing these stories. As a child, he also enjoyed watching The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits T.V. series. He received his primary and secondary education in the New York state public school system. In 1968, when Rivera was 12 years old, he saw a traveling company perform the play "Rumpelstiltskin" at his school. Witnessing the collective reaction of the audience towards the play convinced the young Rivera that someday, he too, would like to write plays.

Many of his plays have been produced across the nation and even translated into several languages, including: The House of Ramon Iglesias, Cloud Tectonics, The Street of the Sun, Sonnets for an Old Century, Sueño, Giants Have Us in Their Books, References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot and Adoration of the Old Woman. In 2003, Cloud Tectonics was presented in the XLII Festival of Puerto Rican Theater, an event sponsored by the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture, in San Juan. Rivera helped found the Los Angeles-based theater company, The Wilton Project.