Jorge Arroyo

Jorge Arroyo (1959- )

He is one of the most popular playwrights in the last decades of the Costa Rican Theater. He was born in San José, Costa Rica in 1959, but he grew up in the province of Alajuela. Thanks of his experience of living in the country side he was able to learn all the traditions and costumes which unfortunately have been forgotten. How ever, Arroyo has been working hardly to rescue all these traditions and costumes throughout his plays. He has been also known as actor, director and poet. In the poetic field his work has also been recognized with the publications of two poetry books; Para Aprisionar Nostalgias (For Binding Nostalgia) in 1983 and Cuerpo de mimbre (Body of Osier) in 1984. In 1977 he started his studies of law at the Universidad de Costa Rica, two years later he entered to the School of Dramatical Arts at the same university. He graduates from both Law and Dramatical Arts in 1982 at the same time he starts acting and winning, consequently, the price of the best debutant in this year. Nevertheless, his name started being recognized in The Costa Rican Theatre with his first play L’ ánima sola de Chico Muñoz (The lonely soul of Chico Muñóz) which was on stage in 1985 and reached 312 representations at Teatro del Angel (Theater of Angel) during the whole year. The demand of his plays kept in ascent and in 1986 his second play La chupeta electrónic is on stage for 156 occasions, followed in 1987 for his third play Con la honra en el alambre based on Maupassant’s short story Le Rosier de Madame Husson. Few months later he travels to United States to participate in The International Writing Program of Iowa. As a result of this experience, he writes Sentencia para una Aurora (Sentence for an Aurora) with which he wins the most prestigious prize in Costa Rica, The Aquileo Echeverría National Prize. At the same time with this play he gained international recognition since it was on stage in Puerto Rico and Brazil. On the other hand this dramatist has developed a pioneer program in several high schools around the country in order to promote theater as well as recruit new young talents. To achieve this plan, Jorge Arroyo relayed with the collaboration of one of the most recognized actors in the country Roberto Zeledón. In this way, working together Arroyo and Zeledón put on stage one of last Arroyo’s plays named La tea fulgurante ( The Shining Torch) in order to encourage the high school students to be involved in the production of a play as well as make them interested in this field.Currently, Jorge Arroyo resides in San José, Costa Rica where he is working actively in theater as well as in the publication of his first novel.