Tlaloc Rivas

Associate Professor in Residence, Theatre Studies

Tlaloc Rivas (he/him) is a playwright, director, dramaturg, and producer based in Connecticut (ancestral lands of the Mohegan, Nipmuc, and Pequot people) and has worked extensively as a stage director, teaching artist, and educator all over the country. He is Associate Professor in Residence of Theatre Studies at UConn as well as a Lecturer in Acting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale

Tlaloc was the inaugural Presidential Postdoctoral Presidential Fellow for Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama from 2019-2020. He holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington School of Drama and a BA (w/Honors) from University of California, Santa Cruz.

He serves on the boards of The New Harmony Project and the Latiné New Musical Theatre Lab. Tlaloc is a member of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the Dramatists Guild, and co-founder of the Latinx Theatre Commons. He is the recipient of the Sir John Gielgud Fellowship in Classical Directing, the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors, and a Usual Suspect (Emeritus) for New York Theater Workshop.

During the pandemic, Tlaloc has been on the frontier of virtual live theatre. His acclaimed production of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (based on the novel by Sonia Manzano) was presented virtually at the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and for RE:Encuentro: National Festival of New Latinx Theatre. He also produced the Latinx Superfriends Playwriting Hour – a series that shared playwriting techniques within and outside the Latinx/e artistic community.

Last season for Connecticut Repertory Theatre, he directed Martín Zimmerman’s Seven Spots on the Sun. He is currently the dramaturg for the new Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson concept album/musical Mexodus.