Ricardo A. Vila-Roger

Ricardo is a Pittsburgh-based actor, singer, and director. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder where he studied acting, directing, and voice. While in CO, he worked as an actor, singer, director, scenic painter, and properties designer and studied performance techniques under numerous teachers (including a week-long Shakespeare intensive with Martin Jenkins, the director of BBC Radio Drama, and a musical theatre audition intensive workshop with Ben Vereen). He received a Peak Area Performance Award (PAPA) nomination for best actor for playing Yvan in the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Repertory Theater Company’s production of Yasmina Reza’s Art. Since moving to Pittsburgh, he has appeared in the regional premieres of Fixing King John and Orange Flower Water as well as the world premier of Oedipus and the Foul Mess in Thebes with No Name Players. He directed the regional premiere of Dead Man’s Cell Phone — the inaugural production of Organic Theatre Pittsburgh (which was named best new theater company by The Pittsburgh Post Gazette). He also directed Pittsburgh premieres of Quiara Algeria Hudes' Pulitzer Prize-winning play Water by the Spoonful and Kirsten Greenidge’s Baltimore, as well as Our Town at the University of Pittsburgh. Recent productions include the Pittsburgh premier of Gloria for The Hatch Collective, the world premier of OJO with Bricolage, Peribañez with Quantum Theatre, and In the Heights, Nine, and Curse of the Starving Class at UP Stages. Ricardo teaches performance and serves as a mentor and acting coach for undergraduate performers at the University of Pittsburgh.