Rudi is a playwright, poet, and performer who creates solo theater and devised theater work. As an acclaimed dancer, he has toured nationally, and internationally, competing, adjudicating, and teaching with his award-winning group Flipside Kings.
Rudi is a recipient of the Colman Domingo Award, a three-time recipient of playwriting awards from the Kennedy Center, the Distinguished Achievement for the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and an O'Neill Finalist; as well as a Future Aesthetics Artist Re-grant, two Miami-Dade County Choreographer Awards; a FEAST Award for his book of poetry "A Bag of Halos and Horns," and a Theater Masters' Take Ten Playwright.
He is a founding member of Teo Castellanos/D-Projects and Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre. And he has trained and worked with Cirque De Soleil, and DV8 Physical Theater.
Publications include Theater Magazine, Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage, and Samuel French/Concord Theatricals.
Rudi holds an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama where he was mentored by Tarell Alvin McCraney and Sarah Ruhl.
Plays
Fíto and Bastian, Two Nicaraguan brothers, find themselves at odds when their views and dreams collide. At the expense of their relationship, both make life-changing decisions that put the pursuit of their American Dream and their future in peril. Alongside poetry and a rhythmic drive, we are invited into a space where live music, ritual, and reality intertwine in this fable about the bond between brothers.
After 30 years in the United States, it is the day of Fito’s naturalization ceremony.
As he raises his hand for the Oath of Allegiance, he is transported to a composition of musical snapshots that make up his tapestry in this country. Some are jaded, some moot, some filled with bodies of water, some disheartening—but none ever debilitating enough to keep him from chasing his dream to be the first American citizen in his family.
FITO is an interactive concert-play incorporating songs, stories, and spoken-word poems that meld together to paint a soundscape of what it can take to be accepted in your own home.
Originally Commissioned & Presented by The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts as part of the 2019 Live Arts Bard Biennial: Where No Wall Remains.
A compilation of stories being interwoven through the theme of death, the dead, the dying, and the shared experiences of those still mourning. But also, a celebration; an ode, a poem; a slow dance with someone you don’t like—or your mother, father, or self.
A necessary ritual consisting of a string of comedic satires, late-night commercials inside a skilled nursing facility, gospel singing, dancing, and lip-synching.
Two ten-year-old Afro-Latinas, Belli and Siddi are being raised by their fathers, Pops, and Pa; while their determined mothers, Yovi and Yuli, who have recently transitioned are stuck between our world and death.
When things go awry because of pops' habitual ways, the girls decide to rob a bank and god shows up in the form of a drag queen to…help?
Lago, a queer, high school wrestler navigates his sexuality, father’s death, and mental health; amid the opportunity of being the dominant athlete in his state.
Successes
• COLMAN DOMINGO AWARD
• KENNEDY CENTER LATINX PLAYWRITING AWARD
• DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT FOR THE LORRAINE HANSBERRY AWARD
• 2X KENNEDY CENTER HIP HOP THEATER CREATOR AWARD
• MARK TWAIN PRIZE FOR COMIC PLAYWRITING
• TAKE TEN PLAYWRIGHT
• O'NEILL FINALIST