Charles Rice-González, born in Puerto Rico and reared in the Bronx, is a writer, long-time community and LGBT activist, and Executive Director of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. He received a B.A. in Communications from Adelphi University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College.
His work’s been published in The Pitkin Review, Los Otros Cuerpos - the first anthology of Puerto Rican queer work and in the upcoming Best Gay Stories 2008.
Mr. Rice-Gonzalez has written several plays including WHAT CARLOS FEELS (1990), PINK JESUS (1997), and LOS NUTCRACKERS: A CHRISTMAS CARAJO (produced each year at BAAD! since 2004) and I JUST LOVE ANDY GIBB which won Pregones Theater’s 2005 ASUNCION Play Reading Series and received a workshop production in May 2007.
He’s currently completing a novel called CHULITO about a tough, sexy hip hop-loving, 16 year old Latino, coming out and coming of age in the South Bronx and HUNTS POINT, a novel that looks at a South Bronx neighborhood through a queer Latino lens. He has read his work at BAAD!, The Downtown Bronx Café and at Pepatian productions at Pregones, The Living Room and Bowery Poetry Club.
Mr. Rice-Gonzalez attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and received a residency from the Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock, NY. Charles also serves on the boards of the Bronx Council on the Arts and NALAC - The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.
He has worked in the publicity and public relations field for over 15 years at places like Universal Pictures, Repertorio Español and for former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer (in the Education Unit). In 1997 he formed Rice-Gonzalez Public Relations, which offers full service public relations, publicity and marketing campaigns in English and Spanish for culture, film, theatre, dance and arts groups. RGPR has worked with nearly every major Latino theatre company in New York as well as with productions at New Victory Theatre, American Place Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop, P.S. 122, New York Theatre Workshop, La Mama ETC and with the Broadway production of Nilo Cruz’s ANNA IN THE TROPICS.
In addition to handling the publicity for Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, which he runs with Arthur Aviles, he has worked with a variety of dance companies like Ballet Hispanico, Noche Flamenca, Amy Pivar Dances, Urban Ballet Theatre, David Parker and the Bang Group, Physual and with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba on their return tour in 1999 at City Center.
In 1998, he and Bessie Award-winning dancer/choreographer Arthur Aviles formed BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, a 70 seat workshop and performance space in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx that showcases challenging and cutting-edge works by women, people of color and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. Mr. Rice-Gonzalez serves as the Executive Director of BAAD! which presents four festivals per year: BAAD! ASS WOMEN, Boogie Down Dance Series, OUT LIKE THAT! and the BlakTino Performance Series. BAAD! was crowned “a funky and welcoming performance space†by the NY Times.
