Octavio Solis

Octavio Solis
Octavio Solis
	Octavio Solis at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, September 2019
Born	1958 (age 61–62); El Paso, Texas, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	Trinity University (BFA); Trinity University (at Dallas Theatre Centre) (MFA)
Occupation	Playwright and director
Spouse(s)	Jeanne Sexton

Octavio Solis (born 1958) is an American playwright and director[1] who has had his productions shown in A-list theaters and small companies across the United States. He has written over 25 plays, including his most famous works: Lydia, Santos & Santos and Man of the Flesh. His works have earned numerous awards and grants.

Life and career

Born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican parents,[2] Solis started his career in theater by joining his high school, Riverside High School’s (El Paso, TX) theater group when he was fourteen.[3] He received a BFA at Trinity University and went on to earn his MFA at Trinity University's off-campus program at the Dallas Theatre Center.[2] After college, while acting in Eric Overmyer's Native Speech in Dallas, Solis was inspired to write his own plays rather than act in them. In between acting and writing, he taught high school students.[4] He moved to San Francisco in 1989 to further his career, as he felt he was "hitting a glass ceiling" in Dallas, and felt that California would be a good place to participate in the "Mexican American experience".[4]

Solis uses his experiences in life to help create and shape his plays, often drawing directly from his time in El Paso, where he states that he was able to see both the first-world and the third-world from his backyard.[2] In his play Lydia, which focuses on a working-class Mexican-American family and an undocumented maid who arrives in the broken home, he draws upon his own experiences as a Latino living only a mile from the Rio Grande.

In Disney's Coco, Solis voices an Arrival Agent.

Contributions to Latino Theatre

Octavio Solis has made a large number of contributions to the Latino Theatre community, namely in the number of works he has created that are designed to be for and played by Latino/as. One of his most critically acclaimed works, Lydia, focuses on a Latino family and their maid who recently came from Mexico to work in the states. His importance in the Latino/a community have been widely recognized, as evident by his numerous awards such as his National Latino Playwriting Award and his being awarded the Henry Award for Outstanding New Play.[5] He has also received a number of grants and funds, including the New Works Fund Grant from the Theatre Bay Area and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays.[5]

Awards[5]

Award	Dates
Barri and BC Stavis Playwriting Award, National Theatre Conference	1992-93
Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund: Writers for Young Audiences (for La Posada Magica)	1992-93
The Will Glickman Award for Best New Play in the Bay Area (for Santos & Santos)	1993
The Roger L. Stevens Award: Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays (for Santos & Santos)	1994
Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays (for Dreamlandia)	1997-98
Playwriting Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts	1995-97
McKnight Fellowship: The Playwrights' Center	1998-99
TCG/NEA Theatre Artists in Residence Grant, Dallas Theater Center	1998–2000
National Theatre Artists Residency Program, Pew Charitable Trusts	2000-02
TCG/NEA Theatre Artists in Residence Grant, Shadowlight Productions	2000-01
National Latino Playwriting Award: Arizona Theatre Center	2002
Creative Work Fund, Campo Santo, Intersection for the Arts	2002-03
New Works Fund Grant, Theatre Bay Area	2006-07
Thornton Wilder Fellow, MacDowell Colony	2008
Denver Post Ovation Award, Best Production (for Lydia)	2008
Henry Award, Outstanding New Play (for Lydia)	2008
Bay Area Critics Circle Mid-Career Achievement Award	2010
United States Artists Fellowship	2011
Pen Center Award for Drama (For Se Llama Cristana)	2014
Distinguished Achievement in the American Theater Award by the William Inge Center for the Arts	2019

Works[5]

Production	Theaters	Dates
Impatiens	Intersection for the Arts, SF, CA	August 1990
Scrappers	South Coast Repertory, CA Teatro Milwaukee, WI	Fall 1992-93 May 1995
Man of the Flesh	Teatro Dallas, CA South Coast Repertory, CA The Magic Theatre, CA The San Diego Repertory, CA Latino Chicago Theatre Company Long Beach Playhouse, CA Los Medanos College,Pittsburg, CA 24th Street Theater, San Antonio, TX	Oct. 1998 May 1990 Oct. 1990 Feb. 1991 Nov. 1991 May 1997 Oct.-Nov. 2014 Oct. 2005
Prospect	El Teatro Campesino Latino Chicago Theatre Company The Magic Theatre North Coast REpertory, CA University of California, San Diego	April 1993 Sept. 1993 Jan. 1996 May 2002 2002
La Posada Magica	Odyssey Theatre Los Angeles La Companía, Albuquerque, NM South Coast Repertory San Jose Repertory, CA Teatro Visión, San Jose University of New Mexico, Albuquerque The Guadalupe Center	Dec. 1996 1996 Dec. 1994-2008 Dec. 1995 2000, 2002, 2004 2002 2003-04
El Paso Blue	Intersection for the Arts The San Diego Repertory Teatró Vista/NEXT Theatre, Chicago University of Washington, Seattle Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Venture Theatre, Philadelphia, PA Miracle Theatre Group, Portland, OR Summer Play Festival, New York, NY Quantum Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA Cornish College, Seatte, WA	May 1994 March 1995 Sept. 1997 1998 Feb.-June 1999 Nov. 1999 March 2000 Aug. 2004 Dec. 2006 Nov. 2011
Santos & Santos (Play)	Thick Description Company The Dallas Theater Center Mixed Blood THeatre Company Teatro Vista, Chicago Campo Santo/Thick Description University of Washington, Seattle Texas Tech University, Lubbock Cal State University, Monterey Bay California State University, Sacramento University of Texas at El Paso Imua Theatre Company, New York, NY Nushank Theatre Collective, Austin, TX El Centro Su Teatro, Denver, CO San Pedro Playhouse, Can Antonio, TX Teatro Visión, San Jose	Dec. 1993 May 1995 Jan. 1996 May 1996 July 1996 1997 1998 2000 2002 2003 July 2000 Dec. 2000 Feb. 2004 March 2005 May 2005
El Otro	Thick Description, San Francisco, CA	July 1998, Aug.-Sept. 2009
Shiner	Undermain Theatre, Dallas, TX	1999
Dreamlandia	The Dallas Theater Center Thick Description Teatro Vista	May 2000 Aug. 2002 March 2008
The Seven Visions of Encarnación	Shadowlight Productions	Oct. 2002
Bethlehem	Campo Santo, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Proxy Theatre, San Antonio	July 2003 Aug. 2013
Gibraltar	The Oregon Shakespeare Festival Thick Description, San Francisco, CA San Jose Stage Company, San Jose, CA	July 2005 Nov.-Dec. 2006 Feb.-March 2007
The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy	Campo Santo, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA	Oct.-Nov. 2005
Lethe	Cornerstone Theatre Institute	Aug. 2006
Marfa Lights	West Texas State A&M University, TX St. Mary's College of California	Oct. 2006 Nov. 2006
June in a Box	CampoSanto, Intersection for the Arts St. Mary's College of California	March 2008 November 2011
Lydia (play)	The Denver Center for the Performing Arts Attic Rep, San Antonio, TX The Yale Repertory Theatre Marin Theatre Company Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum National Pastime Theatre, Chicago Sul Ross University, Alpine TX Napa Valley Conservatory Theatre Cara Mia Theatre Company, Dallas, TX	Jan. 2008 2009 Feb. 2009 March 2009 April 2009 Oct. 2013 Oct. 2013 Jan.-Feb. 2015 April 2015
Quixote	The Oregon Shakespeare Festival	June 2009
Ghosts of the River	Teatro Visión Shadowlight Productions, San Jose/San Francisco, CA	Oct.-Nov. 2009 October 2009
The Pastures of Heaven	California Shakespeare Theatre, Berkeley, CA The Western Stage, Salinas, CA	June 2010 June 2012
Cloudlands	South Coast Repertory Theatre, CA	April 2012
Se Llama Cristina	Magic Theatre Kitchen Dog Theatre Theatre at Boston Court INTAR Theatre, NY	Jan. 2013 May 2013 Jan.-Feb. 2014 April–May 2015
Alicia's Miracle	Tides Theatre in collaboration with the Center for the Investigative Reporting	Jan.-Feb. 2015

Books

Retablos: Stories From a Life Lived Along the Border, City Lights, 2018

gollark: Not really, the transmit power is lower than it should be. We had to offload its data onto your backup microchip.

gollark: Why? They can totally be made that via something something determinant.

gollark: Incorrect. All GTech™ matrices are non-invertible for security.

gollark: However, consider the Cayley-Hamilton theorem.

gollark: The last two merely restate 2 and are thus wrong.

References

Hurwitt, Robert. "Octavio Solis' Play 'Lydia' Close to Home." SF Gate. 20 Mar. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2015. http://www.sfgate.com/performance/article/Octavio-Solis-play-Lydia-close-to-home-3247341.php
Breslauer, Jan. "In Reality, Octavio Solis Mines a New Vein." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2015. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-octavio-solis12-2009apr12-story.html
Wilson, Emily. "The Rumpus Interview with Octavio Solis." The Rumpus. 1 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2015. http://therumpus.net/2013/02/the-rumpus-interview-with-octavio-solis/
Ebert, Roger. “Coco Review.” (To tired to do the rest). https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/amp/coco-2017
Singer, Anna. "Octavio Solis." Octavio Solis Playwright and Director. Web. 29 Nov. 2015. http://www.octaviosolis.net/

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[1] Hurwitt, Robert. "Octavio Solis' Play 'Lydia' Close to Home." SF Gate. 20 Mar. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2015. http://www.sfgate.com/performance/article/Octavio-Solis-play-Lydia-close-to-home-3247341.php

[:1-2] Breslauer, Jan. "In Reality, Octavio Solis Mines a New Vein." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2015. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-octavio-solis12-2009apr12-story.html

[:2-3] Wilson, Emily. "The Rumpus Interview with Octavio Solis." The Rumpus. 1 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2015. http://therumpus.net/2013/02/the-rumpus-interview-with-octavio-solis/

[:3-4] Ebert, Roger. “Coco Review.” (To tired to do the rest). https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/amp/coco-2017

[:0-5] Singer, Anna. "Octavio Solis." Octavio Solis Playwright and Director. Web. 29 Nov. 2015. http://www.octaviosolis.net/