GABRIEL CALDERÓN (Montevideo, 1982). Uruguayan playwright, director, and actor. He has written more than 30 plays and has been recognized with several awards, among them the National Literature Prize of Uruguay, which he has received twice: in 2011 for his play Mi pequeño mundo porno and in 2016 for Tal vez la vida sea ridícula.

In 2004, he was awarded a scholarship by the Carolina Foundation to attend the Curso de profesionales en dramaturgia y dirección de teatro in Spain, and in 2009 he took part in the International Summer Residency for Emerging Playwrights at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He was a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and a resident artist at the Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry in Paris.

His works have been translated and staged in numerous countries across Europe and Latin America. In addition to his work as an author and director, Calderón has been a cultural manager and a mentor to new generations of playwrights. He directed Uruguay’s Comedia Nacional and has received several international awards.

In recent years, he has broadened his presence in Europe, premiering at the Quartiers d’Ivry Theatre in Paris, the Avignon Festival, and Madrid’s Autumn Festival, as well as at the Temporada Alta Festival, the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, and the National Theatre of Modena in Italy.

Some of his best-known plays include Mi muñequita (la farsa); Or; Ex – que revienten los actores; Uz; el pueblo; Historia de un jabalí (o algo de Ricardo), Ana contra la Muerte and his most recent one, AI! La miseria ens farà feliços. In all of them, Calderón uses biting humour and metaphor to explore themes such as authoritarianism, repression, the generational transmission of trauma, and social hypocrisy. His writing combines lyricism with absurdity and political critique with profound humanity.