Reynaldo Piniella
Reynaldo Piniella (he/him) is an actor, writer, activist and educator from East New York, Brooklyn. In 2021, he was in the acting company of two Broadway shows at the same time – Thoughts of a Colored Man and Trouble in Mind. His Off-Broadway acting credits include work at Signature Theatre Company, the Public, the Working Theater, TFANA and Rattlestick, regionally with Baltimore Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, Long Wharf, the O'Neill, Cleveland Playhouse, NY Stage & Film, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival and Actors Theatre of Louisville and internationally with the Sundance Theatre Lab in Morocco and NEAP Fest in Rio de Janeiro. TV credits include Reservation Dogs, Sneaky Pete, Law & Order: SVU, The Carrie Diaries, Flesh & Bone, Blue Bloods, Greenleaf, Louie, NYC 22, Us & Them and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Film: Madeline’s Madeline (Sundance Film Fest, Showtime), Shadows (HBO Max) and Broken City (20th Century FOX).
His co-created bilingual Spanish-English Hamlet has been developed at the Public Theater, Folger Theatre, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, and the Acting Company. He is an alum of New Victory Theater's LabWorks, All for One Theater’s Solo Collective, the Civilians’ R&D Group, and a former Artist-in-Residence at the cell theatre, Abingdon Theatre Company and Culture Lab LIC. He has received fellowships from Theatre Communications Group, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, Weeksville Heritage Center, and the All Stars Project. As a playwright, his work has been commissioned by Baltimore Center Stage and Vanderbilt University and has been produced by Ars Nova, San Diego Rep, Single Carrot Theatre, the Lee Strasberg Institute at New York University Tisch, the Center at West Park, Harlem9, the 24 Hour Plays, and Pioneer Theatre Guild. His plays have been developed by the National Black Theatre, the Lark, the Billie Holiday Theatre, Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective, Skeleton Rep, HB Studio, and the Public Theater’s Shakespeare Initiative.
About Afroborinqueño
Afroborinqueño is a solo theater piece about Arturo Schomburg, the man who mentored Langston Hughes, had beef with the founder of the NAACP, is credited with inventing the term “Afro-Latino”, and whose name is now perhaps best known for being on the New York Public Library’s Center for Research in Black Culture.
Through this solo performance, we will travel from the Caribbean, to the frontlines of the fight for Cuban and Puerto Rican independence from Spain, to the streets of New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, and encounter icons of history and culture along the way. From the joy of eating soul food for the first time, hearing the poetry of Harlem, and discovering San Juan Hill, the Black community that was uprooted to build Lincoln Center in New York City, this coming of age story will encourage us to celebrate our shared history and inspire us to save our grandmother's recipes.
Image courtesy of Reynaldo Piniella