Carl Hancock Rux is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, actor, director, singer-songwriter. He is the author of several books including the Village Voice Literary Prize-winning Pagan Operetta, the novel, Asphalt, and the Obie Award-winning play, Talk. Rux is also a singer/songwriter with four CDs to his credit, as well as a frequent collaborator in the fields of dance, theater, film, and contemporary art.
Notable collaborators include Nona Hendryx, Toshi Reagon, Bill T. Jones, Ronald K. Brown, Nick Cave, Anne Bogart, Robert Wilson, Kenny Leon, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Nelson Jr., Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, meshelle ndegeocello and others.
He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Doris Duke Award for New Works, the Doris Duke Charitable Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Prize, the Bessie Award, the Alpert Award in the Arts, and a 2019 Global Change Maker award by WeMakeChange.Org.
Most recently, Rux was commissioned by Lincoln Center to pay tribute to civil rights activists John Lewis, and C. T. Vivian, in a film directed by Carrie Mae Weems, with original music by Brian Eno and meshell ndegeocello. The film, The Baptism was projected and broadcast against the facades of buildings throughout New York, DC, and Atlanta and is currently touring as an exhibit throughout major National museums.
Mr. Rux has taught and or been in residence at Brown University, Yale University, University of Iowa, The New School for Social Research, and BAI/Stella Adler at NYU as NYU (Abu Dhabi) as well many other institutions globally. He is the co-artistic director of the experimental theater/multi-disciplianry company, Mabou Mines in New York City.
His archives are housed at the Billy Rose Theater Division of the New York Public Library, the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution as well as the Film and Video/Theater and Dance Library of California Institute of the Arts, where he is the former Head of the MFA Writing for Performance Program.
