Angelo Parra

Angelo Parra is an American playwright. He was born in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx, New York City. After graduating from Fordham University, his career included work as a reporter/photographer, 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 The Pew Charitable Trusts). His work, The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith, with music on the life 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, won a second NYFA Playwriting Fellowship (2000), and was nominated by the Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Solo Show in 2012. The show, conceived by and originally directed by Joe Brancato and originally staged by Penguin Rep Theatre, Stony Point, NY, was invited to give six performances during the 2012 Montreal International Jazz Festival, making The Devil's Music the first play ever presented in the music festival's 30-year history! Parra has production credits in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C.; at Florida Stage (Palm Beach), The Hartford Stage (Hartford, Connecticut), Theatre Memphis, at the Cape Playhouse (Cape Cod); George Street Playhouse, Florida Rep, Royal Manitoba Theatre Center, Milwaukee Rep, Cleveland Play House, and, at the Edinburgh International Festival. Parra also is the author of Playwriting for Dummies, part of the popular international series of how-to books. Among Parra's other prize-winning plays is the hospital drama, "Journey of the Heart", winner of the Jewel Box Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, and David James Ellis nation