Miguel+Pinero

Miguel Piñero

__About Him: __ Piñero was born on December 19, 1946 in Gurabo, Puerto Rico to Miguel Angel Gomez Ramos and Adelina Piñero. In 1950, when Miguel was four, he moved with his parents and sister Elizabeth to Loisaida (or Lower East Side) in New York. His father abandoned the family in 1954 when his mother was pregnant with their fifth child. His mother then moved into a basement and began receiving welfare. He attended four different schools, three public and one parochial. He would steal food for his family to eat. His first of what would be many criminal convictions was at the age of eleven for theft. He was sent to the Juvenile Detention Center in the Bronx and also to Otisville State Training School for Boys. He joined a street gang called "The Dragons" when he was 13, and when he was 14 he was hustling in the streets.

 He would move to Brooklyn, where he and three other friends would commit robberies (according to Piñero, they did over 100), until they were caught at a jewelry store. He would be sent to Rikers Island in 1964. After this, he joined the Job Corps and was sent to Camp Kilmer for training. It turned out the opportunity was, as Piñero put it, "Dope City, Skag Town." He returned to New York City and became affiliated with the Young Lords, similar to the Black Panthers. He was back in Rikers for drug possession not long after, and even went to Phoenix House. After his second stint at Rikers, his mother sent him to Manhattan State Hospital where he would receive his high-school equivalency diploma.

In 1972, when Piñero was 25 years old, he was incarcerated in Sing Sing prison for second-degree armed robbery. His first literary work was Black Woman with a Blonde Wig On. Marvin Felix Camillo, the director of The Family, an acting troupe made up of ex-cons, submitted the poem to a contest, which it won. The warden of Sing Sing then became concerned that "contraband" was being taken from the prison and nearly put Camillo in jail after seeing an article in the newspaper. While serving time in prison, he wrote the play Short Eyes as part of the inmates playwriting workshop. Mel Gussow came to see it, and due to his review in the New York Times, the director of the Theater at Riverside Church wanted Piñero to put it up at his place.

When he left Sing Sing due to parole in 1973, he was able to put Short Eyes with The Family. The title comes from the slang for pornography "short heist", but since the Puerto Ricans could not pronounce the 'h' so it became short eyes. The play is a drama based on his experiences in prison and portrays life, love and death among prison inmates. In 1974, the play was presented at Riverside Church in Manhattan. Theater impresario Joseph Papp saw the play and was so impressed that he moved the production to Broadway. It went from Riverside Church, then to The Public Theater, eventually to Vivian Beaumont Theatre. The play was nominated for six Tony Awards. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and an Obie Award for the "best play of the year". The play was also a success in Europe. It catapulted Piñero to literary fame. Short Eyes was published in book form by the editorial house Hill & Wang. It became the first play written by a Puerto Rican to be put on Broadway. (source: [])

__Plays: __
 * All Junkies
 * Straight From the Ghetto
 * Short Eyes
 * Sideshow
 * The Guntower
 * The Sun Always Shines for the Cool
 * Eulogy for a Small Time Thief
 * Paper Toilet
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Cold Beer
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">NuYorican Nights at the Stanton Street Social Club
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Playland Blues
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Midnight Moon at the Greasy Spoon

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