Part One Conducted on July 1, 2024

Part Two Conducted on August 8, 2024

Ozzie Rodriguez is a bilingual playwright and actor, director, producer, and Director of the La MaMa Archives since 1987, and Resident Director of Ellen Stewart’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club since the early 1970s.  He is the Founder and Artistic Director of two experimental theatre companies, North Shore Community Arts Center (La MaMa Great Neck) and the Sol/Sun Experimental Theatre Company of San Antonio, Texas, and has toured throughout the world as a member of the Great Jones Repertory and La MaMa’s Umbria Company.  Some of the shows Rodriquez performed in include: THE BIG CHARLOTTE(1969), THE AMERICANS (1969), SHANGO (1970), LA MARIE VISION (1970), CARNIVAL/THE PHOTOGRAPHER (1970), MELODRAMA PLAY (1971), FOR THE BENEFIT OF HARRY (1974), JILSA (1974), SPRING RITES (1975), THE MONK AND THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER (1988). Some of the plays he directed are: THE MAIDS (1971, co-director and performer), THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1972), THE PHANTOM RUIN (1973 and adapter), OBITUARY OF DREAMS (1973), THE NIGHT BEFORE THINKING (1974 and adapter), REFLECTIONS ON A SHATTERED MIRROR (1974), QUINCAS (1974 and adapter), THE MAIDS (1975, La MaMa Great Neck) which won four awards from The New York State Theatre Festival Association, CHILDREN OF THE 3rd EYE (1976 and adapter), SIDEKICKS AND CHAPEL STREET LIGHTS (1976), SLOW POISON/SMALL FIRES (1978), BROTHERS AND SISTERS (1978), I CAN’T HEAR THE BIRDS SINGING (1980), MIS RECUERDOS DE ANTANO (1979), DAYS OF ANTONIO (1982), MADRE DEL SOL/MOTHER OF THE SUN (1981), HOMEBOYS (1981) DENSITY 1.33 (1981), KOLIDESCOPIC (1981), THE SECRET CHRISTMAS (1981), CARMEN (1981), LUST AND THE UNICORN (1987 and adapter), TOP GIRLS (1987), SISTER SONGS (1995), WHEN CLOWNS PLAY HAMLET (2010) and VARIATIONS (2010). He also adapted and translated works, and as a playwright wrote: ALMA, THE GHOST OF SPRING STREET(1976), and WALL OF MIRACLES (1987 directed and contributed lyrics as well). Rodriguez was a Company Coordinator for: MYTHOS OEDIPUS IN GREECE (1985), ANOTHER PHAEDRA VIA HERCULES (1988), THE MONK AND THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER (1988), MYTHOS OEDIPUS and DIONYSUS FILLIUS DEI(1989), TANCREDI AND ERMINIA (1993), THE TROJAN WOMEN (1998), FRAGMENTS OF A GREEK TRIOLOGY (1999), SEVEN AGAINST THEBES (2001), CARMILLA (2003 Film and Video Coordinator), and THE RAVEN (2006 Venice Biennale). Along with shows at La MaMa ETC, additional companies he has worked with include: Great Jones Repertory Company, El Condor Drama Group, North Shore Community Arts Center, Hunter College Theatre Department, TWITAS (Third World Institute of Theater Arts & Sciences) and The Sol/Sun Experimental Theatre Company of San Antonio, Texas, for which he is also the Founder and Artistic Director. For his production of MADRE DEL SOL/MOTHER OF THE SUN with this company he received the Distinguished Contributions to Hispanic Culture Award. 

Ozzie Rodriguez was born and raised in The Bronx within a tightly knit multigenerational Puerto Rican family. His grandparents owned a grocery store and a dry goods store. His first loves were the Hollywood musical movies of the 1940s watched by his parents. It was apparent from the beginning he had talent and he was totally supported by his family. To audition for the High School of Performing Arts he bought LP recordings of My Fair Lady and The King and I and made monologues from them. To go to this high school was unheard of in his group – an all-boys school in which he and a classmate won first prize in a science fair. He was to be a science major! However, he was accepted into the High School of Performing Arts, on 46^th Street in Manhattan, which was the first experiment of such a conservatory (before LaGuardia High School and Juilliard). To qualify you had to have top grades and maintain them, the focus being on academic standing, as well as talent. There were 500 students of different ethnic backgrounds receiving 4 years of intense training. Rodriguez had been trained for Broadway, his first professional role was working Off-Broadway with Frank Langella in The Immoralist (1963-4). He did some television which he hated and swore to never do any more.  Rodriguez decided to quit theatre altogether after being improperly approached at a Broadway audition he had been called back for three times.  He worked in the mailroom at Knopf Publishing and worked his way up to Production and Manufacture of Textbooks at Harper & Row.  Publishing was thought to be one of the best fields to be in at the time and it came with a rich social life wooing clients with many perks, the least of which was free theater tickets. Then a friend from his former acting days, Nelly Vivas, called desperate for him to take a part after an actor walked out of her show. Of course, as life would have it, this lead Rodriguez to the world of Off-Off-Broadway, of which he knew nothing, La MaMa, Ellen Stewart, Tom O’Horgan, Leonard Melfi, Julie Bovasso, Sam Shepard, Paul Foster, Seth Allen. He was subsequently cast in plays and became a fixture of La MaMa.  Soon he was adapting material from Spanish into English language plays, assembling groups of performers and directing. Using his artistic talent and sense of production from publishing days, he created posters and all forms of advertising for the shows as well as sets, costumes and whatever else was needed onstage. He finally found a world where all his talents were needed and necessary.  Ellen Stewart, in her brilliance, kept every script, piece of film footage, prop and costume, review and photo of every show. Rodriguez in a fit of deep concern said these items should be put in a library and not under Ellen’s bed or in closets. He told her to call it an archive. She said, ‘why don’t you do this? Here is your archive,’ making him the Director of the Archives. He also remained a Resident Director; creating, directing and coordinating for La MaMa and the Great Jones Repertory Company.