About

Carlos Murillo

CARLOS MURILLO is a Chicago-based, internationally produced and award winning playwright of Colombian and Puerto Rican descent.

He is a recipient of a 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award for his work in the theatre.  He also received a 2016 Mellon Foundation Playwright Residency at Adventure Stage in Chicago. His body of work has been widely produced throughout the United States and Europe. His best known play Dark Play or Stories for Boys premiered at the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and has been performed throughout the US, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania. The play appeared in the anthology New Playwrights: Best New Plays of 2007 (Smith & Kraus). His other work has been seen in New York at Repertorio Español, P73, the NYC Summer Playwrights Festival, En Garde Arts, The Public Theater New Work Now! Festival, and Soho Rep, in Chicago at The Goodman, Steppenwolf, Collaboraction, Walkabout Theatre, Adventure Stage and Theatre Seven, and in Los Angeles at Theatre @ Boston Court, Circle X and Son of Semele. 

His plays have been commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Goodman, the Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, Steppenwolf and Adventure Stage and developed by The Sundance Theatre Lab, The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, New Dramatists and others.  The Javier Plays, a trilogy of works, published in spring of 2016 by 53rd State Press was called by American Theatre Magazine "an absolutely extraordinary achievement from a writer at the height of his powers." Other publications include Mimesophobia (Broadway Play Publishing), A Human Interest Story (Dramatists Play Service) and his TYA play Augusta & Noble (Dramatic Publishing). Awards include the Met Life Nuestros Voces Award from Repertorio Español, the Frederick Loewe Award from New Dramatists, the Ofner Prize from the Goodman Theatre, the Otis Guernsey Award from the William Inge Theatre Festival, a Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, a Jerome Fellowship at The Playwrights' Center and two National Latino Playwriting Awards from Arizona Theatre Company.

He has served on numerous selection panels, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital MAP Fund, New Dramatists, The Playwrights' Center, the William Inge Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and the Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship. From 1993 to 1995, Carlos served as the Associate Literary Manager at The Public Theater in New York. 

Carlos is the Chair of Theatre Studies and heads the BFA Playwriting Program at The Theatre School of DePaul University, and is a proud alumnus of New Dramatists. He serves on the board of directors of MacDowell. Carlos lives in the south side of Chicago with his wife, the director, Lisa Portes, and their two children Eva and Carlitos.