José Rivera, the first Puerto Rican screenwriter to receive an Oscar nomination — for "The Motorcycle Diaries" (2004), based on the life of Che Guevara -- will present the 25th Annual Burian Lecture on Life in the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Monday, February 21, at the University at Albany's uptown campus, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany.

Free and open to the public, the event will be held in the Performing Arts Center’s Studio Theatre. It is presented by the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment and the UAlbany Theatre Program in association with the New York State Writers Institute.

A former student of Gabriel García Márquez, Rivera wrote 18 episodes of the forthcoming Netflix series based on One Hundred Years of Solitude." Other screenplays include Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” (2012) and “The 33” (2015).

A playwright and a screenwriter, he is the winner of Obie Awards for the plays "Marisol" and "References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot.” His 26 plays, including "Cloud Tectonics," "Boleros for the Disenchanted," "Sueño," "School of the Americas," "Brainpeople," "The Kiss of the Spiderwoman" (translation), and "Each Day Dies with Sleep” have been staged in France, England, Romania, Peru, Mexico, Greece, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Scotland and Canada.