José Rivera, the playwright of Boleros for the Disenchanted, was born in Puerto Rico in 1955 where he was raised until, at the age of four, his family migrated to Long Island, New York. From a young age Rivera was drawn to the stage and has become one of the more prolific contemporary Latino playwrights. Because of this, his list of awards is astonishing, including two OBIE Awards, a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Grant, a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award, a McKnight Fellowship, the Norman Lear Writing Award, an Impact Award, and a Berilla Kerr Playwriting Award. As if that were not enough, Rivera helped to found the Los Angeles-based theatre company, The Wilton Project, is the first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Oscar, and was nominated for the Acadamy Award as a screenwriter for the film The Motorcycle Diaries.