Carl Hancock Rux () is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, recording artist, journalist, curator, and social practice installation artist. Described in the NY Times as "a breathlessly inventive multimedia artist" focused on "art, race, memory and power," [1] Rux began his professional career as a writer with the play Song of Sad Young Men, at the Producer's Club Theater on West 44th St. in New York City. Directed by Tony award-winning actress Trazana Beverley and starring Isiah Washington, the play toured nationally. His most successful play is the OBIE Award-winning play, Talk, produced at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, starring actor Anthony Mackie. Rux is also the author of several books, including the Village Voice Literary Prize-winning collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta, the novel, Asphalt, and is well-known as a recording artist, having made his first album Rux Revue (Sony Music) and five albums on various labels since. He appears as a frequent collaborating artist, most notably on Gerald Clayton's album Life Forum[2] (Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album[3]) and as co-author of the staged incarnation of Steel Hammer by Julia Wolfe, the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-nominated work, created with Anne Bogart.[4] Rux is the author/performer of the Lincoln Center commissioned experimental short poetic film The Baptism, a tribute to civil rights activists John Lewis and C. T. Vivian, directed by Carrie Mae Weems (an official selection in the 2022 Segal Center Film Festival on Theater and Performance) with whom he also toured nationally as a co-writer and performer in the photographer's multi-media work, Grace Notes: Reflections for Now,(a multimedia experience, incorporating video, dance, photography, spoken word, song, step routines, and interviews into a mosaic of social commentary and soliloquy, exploring conceptions of embodiment and resistance through the lens of the Black Lives Matter movement) which premiered at the Spoleto Festival and the Yale Repertory Theatre, supported in part by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School; had a national tour and its world premiere at the Kennedy Center.

Rux has been a contributing writer for several magazines and journals, including Interview Magazine, aRude magazine, Nka Jornal, and is the Multidisciplinary Editor at The Massachusetts Review (recipient of the 2021 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize for Journalism). of Contemporary Art]]Co-Artistic Director and board member of Mabou Mines, an award-winning New York City-based experimental mixed media art and social service company founded in 1970 by David Warrilow, Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Philip Glass; a board member of 122 Community Center "122 CC" (formerly known as Performance Space 122); Associate Artistic Director/Curator in Residence of Harlem Stage/The Gate House, (winner of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters William Dawson Award for Programming Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming); and an associate artist at The Billie Holiday Theater, recipient of the 2021 National Medal of Arts presented by President Joe Biden in 2023. Mr. Rux is the inaugural curator/art director of Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, the Billie Holiday Theater, and the Harlem Stage annual Juneteenth Celebration.

Rux is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Alpert Award in the Arts, the Doris Duke Award for New Works, the Doris Duke Charitable Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts Prize, the Bessie Award; and a Global Change Maker award by WeMakeChange.Org as well as shortlisted for the United States Artists Fellowship.Rux's 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 the California Institute of the Arts.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hancock_Rux)