Ricardo Gamboa, PhD, is an award-winning artist, activist, and scholar based in their native Chicago. For over 20 years, Gamboa has created art, media and theater that is radically produced, presented and politicized and aims to provide radical pedagogical interventions at the grassroots level. Examples include BRUJOS, viral web series about gay Latino doctoral students that are also witches fighting white supremacy; The Hoodoisie, an underground talk show spotlighting revolutionary activism throughout the Americas that draws hundreds of Chicagoans every episode; and, Meet Juan(ito) Doe, a play devised by an ensemble of Chicago Latino residents and based on Chicago Mexican American stories collected over a decade. Gamboa's focuses their current work on endeavors with Concrete Content, an autonomous theater company they found that mobilizes theater as a means of placemaking and popular education and entertainment. Concrete Content produced recent Chicago hit plays The Pillowman, Ruth on the Rocks, and The Wizards. In just a few years of existence, Concrete Content has garnered a substantial following for producing some of the city's most cutting-edge and socially potent theater.
In 2019, Gamboa began working as a screenwriter in Hollywood and since then has written for Amazon Prime, FX, HBOMax, and Showtime. Ricardo has won several awards including a Joyce Award and an International Connections Award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Gamboa has a doctorate degree from New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis and M.A. in Arts Politics from the Tisch School of the Arts. They have worked with hundreds of young people using art as means for political education and self-determination.
Featured Artworks
Image from Concrete Content's "The Pillowman," featuring Omari Ferrell; March 2025
Anthony Arroyo
Image from Concrete Content's "The Pillowman," featuring Roy Gonzalez, Omari Ferrell, Sean James William Parris; March 2025
Anthony Arroyo
Image from Concrete Content's "The Pillowman," featuring Tyran Freeman and Omari Ferrell; March 2025
Anthony Arroyo
Image from Concrete Content's "The Pillowman," featuring Sean James William Parris and Omari Ferrell; March 2025
Anthony Arroyo
Image from Concrete Content's "The Pillowman," featuring Omari Ferrell, Tyran Freeman and Pillowman puppet created by Chio Cabrera and Angotti Cowie; March 2025
Anthony Arroyo
Press Photo from Concrete Content's "Ruth on the Rocks", featuring Ruth Guerra; October 2024
Anthony Arroyo
Press Photo from Concrete Content's "Ruth on the Rocks", featuring Ruth Guerra; October 2024
Anthony Arroyo
Press Photo from Concrete Content's "Ruth on the Rocks", featuring Ruth Guerra; October 2024
Anthony Arroyo
Press Photo from Concrete Content's "Ruth on the Rocks", featuring Ruth Guerra; October 2024
Anthony Arroyo
Still from Concrete Content's "The Wizards," featuring Sean James William Parris and Ricardo Gamboa
Joel Maisonet
Still from Concrete Content's "The Wizards," starring River Ruiz, Eliseo Real, Luis Antonio Mora, Alvaro Padilla; October 2022
Joel Maisonet
Still from Concrete Content's "The Wizards," featuring River Ruiz, Luis Antonio Mora, Alvaro Padilla; October 2022
Joel Maisonet
Image rom The Hoodoisie's Co-Conspirator's Forum; January 2019
Alejandro Rodriguez
Image featuring The Hoodoisie creator Ricardo Gamboa with members Richard Wallace, Karari Olvera, and El Mayer; July 2018
Harry Forbes
Still from BRUJOS, a radical queer-of-color viral web series, 2017
Cinema Libertad
Behind-the-scenes shot of BRUJOS, featuring Ricardo Gamboa and Justin Ignatius Mitchell; June 2017
Cinema Libertad
Photo from after-party of Hood Moms first storytelling show, featuring first cohort of Hood Moms; March 2019
Image from “Meet Juan(ito) Doe,” featuring ensemble member Anthony Soto; September 2017
William Camargo
Image from “Meet Juan(ito) Doe,” featuring ensemble members Alejandro Rodriguez and Keren Diaz de Leon; September 2017
William Camargo
Image from The Young Fugitives’ “Track 13,” featuring Erick Heir McGee, Alfonzo Khalil Smith, Chad Roby, Eliseo Real, Honey Garcia, and River Ruiz; January 2015
Image from The Young Fugitives’ “Track 13,” featuring Erick Heir McGee, Alfonzo Khalil Smith, Chad Roby, Eliseo Real, Honey Garcia, and River Ruiz; January 2015
Sarah Hess
Image from The Young Fugitives' "Track 13," featuring Sol Cabrini de la Ciudad, Alfonzo Khalil Smith, River Ruiz; February 2015
Sarah Hess
Image from rehearsal of The Young Fugitives' "Cold Summer," featuring Sol Cabrini de la Ciudad, Honey Garcia, Neto Padilla; January 2014
Ricardo Gamboa