Puerto Rican Playwrights

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Puerto Rican Playwrights

Puerto Rican playwrights

Notable Nuyorican and Puerto Rican Playwrights

Puerto Rican Plays

Nuyorican and Puerto Rican Playwrights (Alpha Order)

  • Giannina Braschi
  • Migdalia Cruz
    • Miriam’s Flowers (1989): On a young girl’s grief and self-mutilation in the Bronx.
    • El Grito del Bronx (2009): A woman faces her brother’s execution on death row.
  • Emilio Díaz Valcárcel
    • La muerte viva (1958): On cultural erosion and diasporic identity questions.
    • La sangre inútil (1962): On social stagnation within the Puerto Rican middle class.
  • Quiara Alegría Hudes
    • Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue (2006): On Puerto Rican family’s legacy of military service.
    • Water by the Spoonful (2012): A Pulitzer-winning drama bout the search for meaning by a returning Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in his hometown of Philadelphia.
  • René Marqués
    • The Oxcart (La Carreta) (1953): The definitive saga of a family’s migration from the Puerto Rican countryside to San Juan and New York.
    • The Fanlights (Los Soles Truncos) (1958): A gothic drama centered on three sisters struggling to preserve their aristocratic past against a changing society.
  • Lin-Manuel Miranda
    • In the Heights (2005): On chasing “sueñitos” amidst the changing landscape of Washington Heights.
    • Hamilton (2015): A hip-hop retelling of the life of Alexander Hamilton and the founding of the United States.
  • Pedro Pietri
  • Miguel Piñero
    • Short Eyes (1974): A raw depiction of social hierarchy and moral codes within the prison system.
    • The Sun Always Shines for the Cool (1976): A rhythmic, gritty look at the underworld of hustlers, players, and late-night street life.
  • Carmen Rivera
  • Luis Rafael Sánchez
    • The Passion of Antigona Perez (1968): Adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy set within a fictional Latin American dictatorship.
    • Quintuplets (Quintuples) (1984): Two actors portray multiple family members to explore performance and national identity.
  • Alejandro Tapia y Rivera
    • Roberto D’Evreux (1856): A romantic historical drama considered a foundation for Puerto Rican national literature.
    • La Cuarterona (1867): A seminal work addressing racial prejudice and class in 19th-century society.
  • Candido Tirado
    • Momma’s Boyz (2006): Three young men navigate the socioeconomic traps of the inner city.
    • Fish Men (2012): Centered on the high-stakes, street chess in Washington Square Park.
Research Puerto Rican Theatre
  • Recent Puerto Rican Theater: Five Plays from New York * Editor: John V. Antush
  • Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama * Author: Jon D. Rossini
  • Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi * Editors: Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O’Dwyer
  • Nuestro New York: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Plays * Editor: John V. Antush
  • Ricanness: Enduring Time in Anticolonial Performance * Author: Sandra Ruiz
  • Performance, Trauma and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre * Author: Colleen Rua
  • Stages of Conflict: A Critical Anthology of Latin American Theater and Performance * Editors: Diana Taylor and Sarah J. Townsend 
  • The Puerto Rican Theater: Its Origins and Development * Author: Emilio S. Belaval 
  • Boricua Literature: A Literary History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora * Author: Lisa Sánchez González
  • Míriam Colón: Actor and Founder of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater * Author: Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas

Female Puerto Rican playwrights

Hispanic theater companies and festivals in USA

Puerto Rican playwrights United States of Banana
Puerto Rican theater: United States of Banana
Postcolonial Theater Spotlight

Contemporary Puerto Rican Theater

United States of Banana

“The plot of United States of Banana unfolds in the following way: Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and a character named Giannina decide to cross the Hudson to go to Liberty Island, penetrate the Statue of Liberty and free Segismundo, subsequently freeing Puerto Rico from its colonial captivity. This act of defiance produces a response from Gertrude –Hamlet’s mother – who concocts a plan to marry Basilio, free Segismundo, and bring him into the same family as Hamlet as the only possible way to save the ancien régime of imperial United States of Banana from collapsing. 

As part of her plan, Gertrude convinces Basilio that Puerto Rico should be granted admission into the United States of Banana, that all illegal immigrants shall be granted citizenship, and that the borders of the United States of Banana shall be opened. However, her efforts to mitigate the revolution by granting concessions to Giannina and the other insurgents fail, who declare unilaterally the independence of Puerto Rico after realizing that the changes in the United States of Banana’s policies towards Puerto Rico and Latin America were an attempt to perpetuate a sort of imperial Pax Banana under the joint leadership of Basilio and Gertrude. 

Postdramatic theatre: United States of Banana
United States of Banana, Puerto Rican theater

War erupts between Puerto Rico, Cuba (which has claims to Puerto Rico and seeks to create its own Caribbean empire), and the United States of Banana; Giannina and her comrades can only rely on coconuts and philosophical conversation to fight the soldiers of the empire. But the timely intervention of China – the United States creditor – secures the independence of Puerto Rico and brings Braschi’s geo-political comedy to a close.” Ronald Mendoza de Jesus

Notes from the Director

Colombian theater director Juan Pablo Felix Torres writes about directing United States of Banana, a Postdramatic theatre text by Puerto Rican playwright Giannina Braschi.

“On the process of staging the play United States of Banana, based on the original text written by Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi. This work has been widely praised by academics both in and outside the United States and has opened new spaces to reflect on the ideas that concern the Latino population living in the US. These literary expressions are the sign of a vital community that is slowly assuming a historical role in the shaping of the most powerful nation in the planet. 

Postdramatic theatre plays


Since I consider theater to be a social thermometer, I chose this play as my thesis project to testify about the state of affairs regarding the situation of Puerto Rico. Its lack of sovereignty and self-regulation constitute a metaphor about the foreign policy the government of the United States has exercised in many countries, but especially in Latin America. However, it is also time to set our own proposals over the table and abandon the paternalist model that justifies and supports our attitude of beneficiaries of the charities coming from the first world. 


In this play, characters from Classical literature become symbols of entire races and populations to polish a gigantic mirror in which we can look at ourselves. Despite its scathing humor and harrowing critique, the text helped us create a performative event in 6 which we all, creators and spectators, shared a common responsibility: that of contributing to making a world that is fairer and a society that finds hope more easily…” Juan Pablo Felix, author of United States of Banana: A Postcolonial Dramatic Fiction

Latinx theater 

Puerto Rican Women Playwrights

Click here to see more about Puerto Rican Women Playwrights.

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