Raf Antonio is a queer non-binary El Salvadoran artist born in Los Angeles, raised in Saskatchewan, and currently based in Toronto.

In 2015, Raf won the first Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award for Salvador: A Latin-Canadian Fantasia. Their next work, Rope Running Out, was presented by lemonTree creations, receiving a four ‘N’ review from Now Magazine and 12 Broadway World Toronto nominations including ‘Best New Play.’

Raf is a former Artist-in-Residence at Cahoots Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille, working with Marjorie Chan and lemonTree creations on The Effeminates; and a fellow of the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ+ Voices in Los Angeles, where they worked with acclaimed artist Luis Alfaro.

For television, Raf has written two episodes of Balloon House Productions’ Daytime Emmy® and Canadian Screen Award nominated pre-school series Miss Persona, available on Treehouse and Amazon Prime in Canada, and Peacock in the United States. Raf’s episode I Wanna Wear... was one of the season’s most watched and one of the first LGBTQ+ themed episodes to air on the channel. Raf has also worked with Fresh TV on their hit animated series Total Drama Island, story editing and writing an episode. After adapting The Effeminates for the screen through BIPOC TV & Film’s 2022 Drama Writers Lab with mentor Duana Taha, Raf was selected by BIPOC TV & Film for a four week placement in the writers room of Family Channel series Home Sweet Rome, created by Courtney Walker, Matt Huether, and Michael Poryes

Most recently, Raf’s new play WHITE MUSCLE DADDY closed its sold out world premiere run at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the largest and longest-running queer theatre in the world. The final show of the 45th Anniversary Season was produced by Pencil Kit Productions and directed by Raf and award-winning filmmaker Tricia Hagoriles. Moving forward, Raf will continue to seek out and develop work in film and television.

SELECT IMAGES BY RAF

Want to talk? Contact Raf Below.