Ricardo A. Bracho has been named the first Abrams Artist-in-Residence in Penn Arts & Sciences in the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. Artists-in-residence are outstanding visual artists, musicians, writers and other creative practitioners who work with students and faculty. 

Mr. Bracho is a writer, editor and teacher who has worked in community and university settings, theater and video/film, politics, and aesthetics for the past 29 years. His other academic appointments include visiting multicultural faculty at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago and artist-scholar in residence at the Center for Chicano Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. 

Mr. Bracho’s award-winning plays, including The Sweetest Hangover, Sissy, Puto and Mexican Psychotic, have been produced in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, as well as workshopped and staged nationwide. He focuses on community issues, including social justice, public health and the arts with queer and trans youth of color, Latina/o/x high-risk populations, queer men of color and incarcerated men. He has been a participant in the NEA/Theatre Communications Group residency program and with Mabou Mines, a long-running experimental theater group. He is currently compiling his selected plays for publication, as well as at work on Operation Space Maize, an intergalactic queer comedy and love story about Los Angeles and Galaxy 1-B.

“Art is central to humanistic inquiry and a liberal arts education that prepares students to live in a complex and interconnected world,” said Steven J. Fluharty, SAS dean. “The Abrams Artists-in-Residence program allows us to bring important voices to campus to act as mentors and collaborators.”

David C. Abrams (C’83, PAR’12, PAR’15)and Amy L. Abrams (PAR’12, PAR’15) established the Abrams Artists-in-Residence Fund at the School of Arts & Sciences in 2018. They have generously supported Penn Arts & Sciences priorities over the years. He is managing partner of Abrams Capital, LLC, an investment firm and served as a Penn Arts & Sciences Overseer from 2010 until this year.