Octavio Solis (born 1958) is an American playwright and director whose plays have been produced and show 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
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
, Texas, to Mexican parents,
[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] Solis started his career in theater by joining his high school, Riverside High School's (El Paso, TX) theater group when he was fourteen.
[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/] 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.
After college, while acting in Eric Overmyer's ''Native Speech'' in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
, Solis was inspired to write his own plays rather than act in them. In between acting and writing, he taught high school students.
[Ebert, Roger. “Coco Review.” (To tired to do the rest). https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/amp/coco-2017] He moved to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
in 1989 to further his career, as he felt he was "hitting a glass ceiling" in Dallas, and felt that
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
would be a good place to participate in the "Mexican American experience".
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.
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.
Solis was a "cultural consultant" for the
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
film ''
Coco.
'' He voices an Arrival Agent in the film and its spinoff short.
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.
[Singer, Anna. "Octavio Solis." ''Octavio Solis Playwright and Director''. Web. 29 Nov. 2015. http://www.octaviosolis.net/] 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
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...
Fund for New American Plays.
Awards
Works
Books
*''Retablos: Stories From a Life Lived Along the Border'',
City Lights, 2018
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solis, Octavio
1958 births
Living people
American people of Mexican descent
Hispanic and Latino American dramatists and playwrights
People from El Paso, Texas