Ricardo Pitts-Wiley is a critically acclaimed actor, playwright, director, poet and composer. He gained national acclaim for his page-to-stage adaptations of Moby Dick, The Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frankenstein, The Red Tent and Don Quixote. Moby Dick was presented at the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, DC and showcased in Poland at a Melville Conference. It is the centerpiece of a national teachers study guide and a new book, Reading in A Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby Dick for the English Classroom.  In 2009 Pitts-Wiley was the Martin Luther King Jr Visiting Scholar at MIT and was the recipient of the prestigious Pell Award in 2016.

Ricardo is the author of the book and songs for Celebrations: An African Odyssey, The Spirit Warrior’s Dream, Sara’s Jukebox, The Well of Woman, A Kwanzaa Song, Night’s People and The Well of Woman. He has also written and directed the Civil Rights drama Fate Comes Knocking: MLK and the Foot Soldiers of the Civil Right Movement and Reflections: Growing Up a Black Man in America.