Angelo Parra

Angelo Parra is an American playwright who was born on June 2, 1948, in Manhattan; he grew up in the Bronx, New York City. After graduating from Fordham University in 1971, his career included work as a reporter, public relations professional, politician, free-lance writer, and PR and journalism teacher at New York University before turning to theatre in 1986. His first produced play, “Casino,” was presented at T. Schreiber Studio, and won a 1989 New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Playwriting and an Arts International grant (sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Information Agency, Rockefeller Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts), among other awards.

His best-known work, the critically acclaimed play with music on the life of Bessie Smith, "The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith", was named “one of the top-10 Off-Broadway experiences of 2001” by the New York Daily News, “Best Solo Show” by Florida’s Broward/Palm Beach New Times, and won a second NYFA Playwriting Fellowship (2000).

Among his other prize-winning plays is the hospital drama, "Journey of the Heart" (formerly titled "A Heart of Flesh"), winner of the Jewel Box Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, and David James Ellis national play awards in 1998. Also in 1998, “Song of the Coquí,” his Hispanic family drama with humor and dance, won the Chicano/Latino Literary Award (University of California, Irvine) and an “American Dream” prize by Repertorio Español in New York City.

Parra is a member of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and The Dramatist Guild. He was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the 2000 Sewanee Writers Conference, and teaches playwriting at Ramapo College of New Jersey. In addition to his BA in Communication Arts at Fordham, he earned an MA in Political Science at the New School in New York, and MFA in Playwriting at Brooklyn College.

Other plays by Parra include: • “Canvases” • “The Price of Honor” • “Prickasaurus” • “The Slope” • “Warmflesch” • “A Waltz Without Turns” • “Midnight Kiss” • “What is it With Me?”, along with the children's musicals "Percy T. Penguin Comes to America" and "Anansi the Spider Learns his Lesson."