Zé Celso

In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Martinez and the second or paternal family name is Corrêa.

José Celso Martinez Corrêa (30 March 1937 – 6 July 2023), known as Zé Celso, was a Brazilian stage actor, director and playwright.^[1] He was one of the founders of Teatro Oficina, an innovative and politically active theater company associated with the 1960s Tropicalismo movement.^[2]

Zé Celso
Celso in 2010
Born	José Celso Martinez Corrêa (1937-03-30)30 March 1937 Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil
Died	6 July 2023(2023-07-06) (aged 86) São Paulo, Brazil
Alma mater	Law School, University of São Paulo (dropped out)
Occupation(s)	Stage actor, director and playwright
Years active	1958–2023
Notable work	The Bacchae, Os Sertões, O Rei da Vela, Roda Viva
Movement	Anthropophagism
Spouse	Marcelo Drummond ​ (m. 2023)​
Website	teatroficina.com

Zé Celso became notable in the scene with his adaptation of Oswald de Andrade's play O Rei da Vela (The Candle King), in 1967.^[3] He also co-wrote with Chico Buarque the 1968 play Roda Viva, which was targeted as pornographic and was censored during the military dictatorship.^[4] One of his final plays was Os Sertões, a trilogy adapting the book by Euclides da Cunha.^[5]

Personal life and death

Zé Celso was in a 40-year relationship with actor Marcelo Drummond. The couple married in June 2023, with a ceremony at Teatro Oficina.^[6]

Zé Celso died in São Paulo on 6 July 2023, at the age of 86. He was hospitalized at Hospital das Clínicas, after a fire broke out in his apartment in the Paraíso neighborhood. Zé Celso was 53% burned and was under mechanical ventilation; his husband Marcelo, two visitors, and the couple's dog, who were also in the apartment, did not sustain burns, but were under observation at the hospital.^[7]