Artist Bio

(Bio as of April 2012)

Cándido Tirado most recently collaborated with the Goodman on Fish Men during the 2011/2012 Season. He is a New York-based playwright. His play Momma’s Boyz, produced by Teatro Vista earlier this season, was chosen as a “Chicago Top Ten in 2011” by the Huffington Post. His off-Broadway productions include Celia: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz (co-written with Carmen Rivera) which premiered at New World Stages and was also performed in Chicago’s Athenaeum Theater, Las Bellas Artes in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Tenerife and Miami; King Without a Castle (also workshopped at Sundance Theater Lab); Checking Out; First Class (Puerto Rican Traveling Theater) and The Barber Shop and Momma’s Boyz (Repertorio Español). Other productions include The Missteps of a Salsa Dancer, From Dating to Death in Five Easy Steps, Ilka: The Dream, Some People Have All The Luck, produced at the National Theater of the Dominican Republic and in New York. Mr. Tirado’s other plays include Heart Stopping Sex, and The Kid Next Door, Hey There Black Cat, Abuelo, The Missing Colors of the Rainbow, Hands of Stone, Palladium and La Cancíon. He co-wrote with Alfredo Bejar the award winning short film Getting to Heaven and was a staff writer for the TV show Ghostwriter where his episode was nominated for a Humanitas Award. His screenplays include Da Bronx, El Casique del Poker and The Milagro Boyz. He’s a four-time winner of the New York Foundation of the Arts Playwriting Fellowship. Publications include First Class, Recent Puerto Rican Theater: Five Plays from New York (Arte Publico); Some People Have All the Luck, Nuestro New York: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Playwrights (Penguin, Mentor Books); Ilka the Dream: Positive/Negative: Women of Color Living with H.I.V. (Aunt Lute Books). With his wife Carmen Rivera, Mr. Tirado is a co-founder of Educational Plays Production, which tours public schools presenting plays with social issues concerning the youth. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.