c/o Bruce Ostler
448 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
(212) 868-1068
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Rogelio Martinez was born in Sancti-Spiritus, Cuba, and came to this country in 1980 on the Mariel boatlift. Rogelio lived in Union City, New Jersey. Union City turned out to be unique in that it was second only to Miami in having the greatest concentration of Cubans. He received his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University and his graduate degree from Columbia University. He has worked in various little rooms in the New York City area with a whole bunch of wonderful actors. Rogelio is a recipient of a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
COMRADES AND WORMS
Full-length Dark Comedy 6M, 3W
Multiple Sets
Cuba. The recent past. A famed director is forced to direct a company of
amateur actors. Intrigue, lust, and black market shampoo fill the
rehearsals. A play about paranoia and fear out of control. In Castro’s
Cuba no one knows who to trust. American soap is as illegal as drugs and
the dollar is coveted by all. Comrades and Worms is about the unraveling
of a rehearsal process that bears a close resemblance to Cuba itself.
Mark Taper Forum's 1996 New Work Festival; workshop at the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival (1998).
THEY STILL MAMBO IN HAVANA
Full-length Satire 6M, 3W
Multiple Locations (Abstract)
Structurally based on La Rhonde, the play takes place in Havana where a
murderer is loose. “Sad, hysterical exiles” and related others play out
their passions and demons in relation to the country that has shaped them.
This political satire illuminates the violation of a country forced to
prostitute itself for the mighty dollar.
“The title, They Still Mambo in Havana, is as ironic as nearly
everything else in this acerbically funny satire about Cuban Americans who
visit the homeland. Playwright Rogelio Martinez, a Cuban émigré, sets up a
bitter tension across the chasm between those who left and those who
stayed…Everywhere money changes hands, dollars are tucked into pockets,
and sex is traded for whatever is required…Martinez sets his story of
moral ambiguity within a noirish murder mystery in which all are strangely
connected to a woman slashed on the beach.” – The Village Voice
Produced by the BAT Theater (1998).
LENIN'S OMELET
10-Minute Play 4M, 1W
One Set
A British journalist is in Cuba to interview several writers. Some of the
writers haven't written a word in years, others only write propaganda, and
one picks up garbage.
A finalist for the 1998 Heidemann Award at Actor's Theatre of
Louisville.
WHEN IT'S COCKTAIL TIME IN CUBA
Full-length Comedy 5M, 2W
Two Sets
Part sex farce, part drama, COCKTAIL TIME takes a look at the early years
of the Cuban Revolution and what went wrong.
Fidel and friends are in a Moscow hotel room waiting for Kruschev to
arrive. This is the moment in history that sets the stage for all that’s
to follow. But the Fidel here is not like any Fidel you know. He is a man
sexually impaired, egomaniacal and heartless, but surprisingly human.
Public Theater’s “New Work Now!” reading series, 2000.
PARTIAL COMPLEX SEIZURE
Full-length Dark Comedy 3M, 1W
Multiple Sets
When a young man returns home to Cuba, he has blood on his mind and a vise
in his suitcase. A tale of Oedipal revenge set in modern day Havana.
“Given this twisted circle of deceit, it’s almost impossible not to
bring up Castro, Cuba’s ultimate psychosexual tormentor-patriarch. Call it
bourgeois decadence, but portraying Fidel’s reign as a polymorphous chain
of sexual encounters in which the father figure is either present or
observing is not totally off the mark.” –The Village Voice
Playwright’s Collective (1997).
ILLUMINATING VERONICA
Drama 3M, 3W
One Set
1960. Fidel has turned Havana upside down. Veronica’s family has fled the
country, leaving her behind to find a new family. Pregnant and ready to
participate in whatever Fidel throws her way, she is not fully prepared
for everything the revolution has in store. ILLUMINATING VERONICA is a
play about betrayal and hope that looks at Castro’s Cuba, not as a demonic
state nor as a perfect paradise, but as a work in progress.
Workshop production at the Pacific Playwright’s Project at South Coast
Rep; Public Theater’s “New Work Now!” reading series (1999). Published by
Broadway Play Publishing in the anthology Plays from South Coast
Repertory: The Hispanic Playwright’s Project.
ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES
Black Comedy 2M, 1W
One Set
Cuba. Two brothers. Both writers. One left. One stayed. After twenty years
apart, they meet in their childhood home where their sister has lived all
her life. Who is the better writer? Who has the right to call himself
Cuban? A fight of wills ensues in a black comedy that explores the right
to one’s homeland.
“Darkly comic and startlingly incendiary, Rogelio Martinez’s Arrivals
and Departures reveals its Cuban-born author as a writer attuned to the
vocal rhythms of his homeland yet influenced by American playwrights…” –
The Miami Herald
Produced by Oye Rep/Area Stage, Miami, Florida (2000).
I REGRET SHE’S MADE OF SUGAR
Black Comedy 4M, 1W
One Set
1958. New Year’s Eve. The life of one young woman spirals out of control
as her past comes face to face with her future. A revenge play full of
blood and death and a few laughs.
Commissioned by South Coast Repertory; Winner of the 2001 Princess
Grace Award.