Rogelio Martinez is an award-winning playwright whose plays have been workshopped and produced in theaters across the country and abroad. His play, Born In East Berlin, was first performed at the Stasi Museum, Berlin in both English and German. The play had its world premiere at the San Francisco Playhouse in February 2020. More recently, Martinez worked on The Seven Deadly Sins project for Miami New Drama. It was the largest theatrical production allowed by equity during the pandemic. The project was created and directed by Michel Hausman. It won the Drama League Award - Outstanding Interactive or Socially-Distanced Theater.

In 2021, Martinez worked on a new television project for Tom Fontana, based on the book, Year of Dangerous Days.

Miami New Drama commissioned Martinez to write a new play about Elián Gonzalez. The play will have its premiere in Fall 2022. In the Spring, Martinez wrote a new play for En Garde Arts that was performed at the start of the summer: Downtown Stories, Dreams from New York's Oldest Streets. Recently, Syracuse Stage commissioned Martinez to write a new play tentatively titled The National Pastime. Martinez has just been awarded a Hermitage Artist residency. In the coming two years, he will have the chance to travel to Sarasota Florida for up to four weeks to write and engage with the community.

Martinez’s play, Blind Date, was produced at the Goodman Theatre under the direction of Tony nominee Robert Falls. The production had a cast of over 20 actors. Tony Award winning actress Deanna Dunagan played Nancy Reagan. Her performance received a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination. Blind Date was awarded an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. This is the second time Martinez’s work has received an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. Blind Date was one of only two plays that year awarded a Citation of Excellence by the Laurents / Hatcher Foundation.

Martinez is a recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship. Martinez is also the winner of a Princess Grace Award, and a Mid-Career Fellowship at the Lark Theater Company. In the past, he has received grants and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, NEA/ TCG, and the James Hammerstein Award among others.

After being awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Science and Technology Initiative Grant by the Denver Center, Martinez went on to write When Tang Met Laika, a post Cold War space exploration play; which was subsequently produced by the Denver Center. This inspired Martinez to bring the Cold War itself on stage and write a three play cycle exploring the time period.

The first play in his Cold War trilogy is Ping Pong. The play is about U.S.-Chinese relations during the Nixon administration. It was presented at the Public Theatre as part of their Public Studio program and later published by Broadway Play Publishing.

Born in East Berlin, the second play, tackled the impact a Springsteen concert had on East Germans just prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The play was workshopped at the Atlantic Theater Company and has since been translated into Hungarian, Romanian, and German. The trilogy’s conclusion is Blind Date. It was originally commissioned by the Denver Center Theater Company.

Martinez has been workshopped and commissioned by various theaters across the country including the Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Repertory, Atlantic Theater Company, Arden Theater, Asolo Repertory, and Ojai Theater Company, and many more. His plays include Illuminating Veronica, Arrivals and Departures, All Eyes and Ears, Blind Date (all published by Broadway Play Publishing). This year Broadway Play Publishing will publish Born in East Berlin, and I Regret She’s Made of Sugar (Princess Grace Winner).

For several years, Martinez was a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group at Primary Stages. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists.

As an advocate of the arts and an educator, Martinez has spoken before the Albany State legislature. He has worked with and mentored writers of all ages including high school kids. He teaches graduate level playwriting at Columbia University. Martinez teaches undergraduate playwriting at NYU. In the summer of 2016, Martinez travelled to Portugal where he taught a two-week playwriting workshop. Martinez has translated the work of both Mexican and Cuban playwrights.

Martinez has been a guest editor for Clockworks Magazine. He was an actor on the film Exiles in New York, which played at the A.F.I Film Festival, South by South West, The Santa Barbara Film Festival and The Latin American International Film Festival in Havana, Cuba. In addition, Martinez has written for children’s television.

Martinez was born in Sancti-Spiritus, Cuba and came to this country on the Mariel boatlift.