Luis Alfaro | |
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![]() Luis Alfaro at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, September 2019 | |
Born | Luis Alfaro 1963 (age 60–61) |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1992–present |
Luis Alfaro (born 1963 in Los Angeles, California) is a Chicano performance artist, writer, theater director, and social activist.
He grew up in the Pico Union district near Downtown Los Angeles, and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in East Los Angeles. His plays and fiction are set in Los Angeles's Chicano barrios, including the Pico Union district, and often feature gay and lesbian and working-class themes. [1] Many of Alfaro's plays also deal with the AIDS pandemic in Latino communities. [2] Noted plays include "Bitter Homes and Gardens," "Pico Union," "Downtown," "Cuerpo Politizado," "Straight as a Line," "Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner," "No Holds Barrio," and "Black Butterfly." Many of these plays have also been published as stories or poetry. He is an associate professor in the School of Dramatic Arts at the University of Southern California. [3] and from 2013-19, he was the playwright-in-residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
His writing, both sole-authored and collaborative, is collected in numerous anthologies. In 1994 his spoken-word CD, Downtown was released. His short film Chicanismo was produced by the Public broadcasting Service and released in 1999. [4] He also contributed to the 1995 film Pochonovela, [5] a collaboration between the Cuban American performer Coco Fusco and the LA-based Chicano performance ensemble, Chicano Secret Service. [6] This mock telenovela explores and sends up Chicano activism and assimilation in a sardonic exploration of working class barrio life. [7]
In 2010, his play Oedipus El Rey, [8] a Chicano retelling of Oedipus Rex , had its world premiere at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. [9] Oedipus El Rey had its Texas regional premiere at Dallas Theater Center from January 16-March 2, 2014 under the direction of Kevin Moriarty. [10] The play received a production at San Diego Repertory Theatre from March 10–29, 2015 under the direction of Sam Woodhouse. [11] Oedipus El Rey received its New York premiere at The Public Theater in collaboration with The Sol Project and Jacob Padrón in 2017. The play was produced at The Public Theater's Shiva Theater from October 3-November 19 under the direction of Chay Yew and was scheduled to run in 2018. The New York cast featured Juan Castano, Sandra Delgado, Julio Monge, Joel Perez, Brian Quijada, Reza Salazar, and Juan Francisco Villa. [12]
Luis Alfaro's solo show St. Jude is the playwright's tribute to his father. St. Jude is an autobiographical play that details the complicated relationship between Alfaro and his father. The show begins with Alfaro describing going back home to rural California after learning his father has suffered a stroke. The play moves back and forth between Alfaro growing up and the events that follow his father's stroke. There are many stories within the larger narrative and they all relate to the overall theme of finding identity. Scenes from his childhood include working in the fields during summers, family celebrations, and some rocky teenage years, including once running away. The small stories and anecdotes from Alfaro's childhood all relate back to his father or his personal journey. [13] St. Jude was produced at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, CA from September 19-October 6, 2013 under the direction of Robert Egan. [14] The play ran from February 13–16, 2014 at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA. [15] St. Jude was produced as part of Victory Gardens Theater's Up Close and Personal Series in 2017. [13]
Luis Alfaro's Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles is a contemporary retelling of Medea . Mojada was first produced at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in 2012 under the title Bruja. Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles was then produced at the Getty Villa in 2015. [16] The premiere was produced by artistic director, Chay Yew, and managing director, Chris Mannelli. [17] Mojada received a production at Oregon Shakespeare Festival from February 19-July 5, 2017 under the direction of Juliette Carrillo. The cast featured Sabina Zúñiga Varela, Lakin Valdez, VIVIS, Nancy Rodriguez, Vilma Silva, Jahnangel Jimenez, and Connor Chaney. [18] Mojada played Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre July 2-August 11, 2019 under the direction of Chay Yew with Sabina Zúñiga Varela reprising her starring role, but with the play itself set in Queens instead of L.A. [19]
Rosa Andújar edited The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro which brought together for the first time Alfaro's three 'Greek' plays. These plays are based on Sophocles' Electra and Oedipus, and Euripides' Medea. Alfaro's Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, and Mojada platform the concerns of the Chicano and wider Latino communities in Los Angeles and New York through ancient drama. [20]
Alfaro has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the MacArthur "Genius" Foundation Fellowship in 1997, [21] and the 1998 National Hispanic Playwriting Competition Prize. [22]
In 2013, he began a three-year term as the Playwright in Residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival through the National Playwright Residency Program, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by HowlRound. In 2016, the grant was renewed for an additional three years. [23] [24] During this six-year tenure, "OSF hosted the first and then subsequent Latinx Playwrights' Projects" to develop new work by Latinx playwrights. [25]
Electra, also spelt Elektra, is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies. She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides. She is also the central figure in plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. She is a vengeful soul in The Libation Bearers, the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy. She plans out an attack with her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra.
Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides. It is based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and was first produced in 431 BC as part of a trilogy; the two other plays have not survived. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife and her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.
Zoot Suit is a play written by Luis Valdez, featuring incidental music by Daniel Valdez and Lalo Guerrero. Zoot Suit is based on the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and the Zoot Suit Riots. Debuting in 1979, Zoot Suit was the first Chicano play on Broadway. In 1981, Luis Valdez also directed a filmed version of the play, combining stage and film techniques.
Senecan tragedy refers to a set of ten ancient Roman tragedies, eight of which were probably written by the Stoic philosopher and politician Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Senecan tragedy, much like any particular type of tragedy, had specific characteristics to help classify it. The three characteristics of Senecan tragedy were: five separate acts, each with a Chorus; recounting of ‘horrors’ and violent acts, which are usually done off-stage; and some sort of parallel of the violence that occurred. Only the Phoenissae departs from the five act structure. In the English literary canon, Seneca appears as a major influence on later texts about revenge, such as Titus Andronicus and The Crying of Lot 49.
Gronk, born Glugio Nicandro, is a Chicano painter, printmaker, and performance artist. His work is collected by museums around the country including the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
El Teatro Campesino is a Chicano theatre company in California. Performing in both English and Spanish, El Teatro Campesino was founded in 1965 as the cultural arm of the United Farm Workers and the Chicano Movement with the "full support of César Chávez." Originally based in Delano, California, during the Delano Strike, the theatre is currently based in San Juan Bautista, California.
Luis Miguel Valdez is an American playwright, screenwriter, film director and actor. Regarded as the father of Chicano film and playwriting, Valdez is best known for his play Zoot Suit, his movie La Bamba, and his creation of El Teatro Campesino. A pioneer in the Chicano Movement, Valdez broadened the scope of theatre and arts of the Chicano community.
Chay Yew is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. He was artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020.
The Gospel at Colonus is an African-American musical version of Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. The show was created in 1983 by the experimental-theatre director Lee Breuer, one of the founders of the seminal American avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines, and composer Bob Telson. The musical was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show had a brief run on Broadway in 1988.
Andrei Șerban is a Romanian-American theater director. A major name in twentieth-century theater, he is renowned for his innovative and iconoclastic interpretations and stagings. In 1992 he became Professor of Theater at the Columbia University School of the Arts, a position he resigned from in 2019, citing oppressive pressure in the name of "political correctness" on a level which reminded him of communist Romania.
Reza Abdoh was an Iranian-born director and playwright known for large-scale, experimental theatrical productions, often staged in unusual spaces like warehouses and abandoned buildings.
The Magic Theatre is a theatre company founded in 1967, presently based at the historic Fort Mason Center on San Francisco's northern waterfront. The Magic Theatre is well known and respected for its singular focus on the development and production of new plays. Sean San José is the Artistic Director.
Diane Rodriguez was an American theatre artist who directed, wrote and performed. An OBIE Award winning actress, she was known for using comedy to confront various forms of oppression, often with special attention to issues of gender and sexuality.
Marianne McDonald is a scholar and philanthropist. Marianne is involved in the interpretation, sharing, compilation, and preservation of Greek and Irish texts, plays and writings. Recognized as a historian on the classics, she has received numerous awards and accolades because of her works and philanthropy. As a playwright, she has authored numerous modern works, based on ancient Greek dramas in modern times. As a teacher and mentor, she is highly sought after for her knowledge of and application of the classic themes and premises of life in modern times. In 2013, she was awarded the Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Classics, Department of Theatre, Classics Program, University of California, San Diego. In 1994, she was inducted into the Royal Irish Academy, being recognized for her expertise and academic excellence in Irish language history, interpretation and the preservation of ancient Irish texts. As a philanthropist, Marianne partnered with Sharp to enhance access to drug and alcohol treatment programs by making a $3 million pledge — the largest gift to benefit behavioral health services in Sharp’s history. Her donation led to the creation of the McDonald Center at Sharp HealthCare. Additionally, to recognize her generosity, Sharp Vista Pacifica Hospital was renamed Sharp McDonald Center.
Evelina Fernández is an American playwright and actress from Los Angeles.
Latino theatre presents a wide range of aesthetic approaches, dramatic structures, and themes, ranging from love, romance, immigration, border politics, nation building, incarceration, and social justice. Whether of a linguistic, ethnic, political, cultural or sexual nature, the plays often have a social justice component involving Latino people living in the United States. The Oxcart by René Marqués, Marisol by José Rivera, and In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda are examples of staged Broadway plays. There is also a strong tradition of Latino avant-garde and absurdist theatre, which double as political satires; prime examples include The Masses are Asses by Pedro Pietri and United States of Banana by Giannina Braschi.
Jorge Alfonso Huerta is a Chicano scholar, author, and theater director. He specializes in Chicano and United States Latinx Theatre. He has written and edited several books specializing in Chicano theatre and is considered to be an authoritative expert in his field.
Jacob Padrón is the Artistic Director of Long Wharf Theatre. He is also the Artistic Director of The Sol Project and a co-founder of the Artists' Anti-Racism Coalition.
Rosa Andújar, FHEA, is a Dominican-American classicist and senior lecturer at King's College London. She is an expert in ancient Greek tragedy, especially the tragic chorus, and Hellenic classicisms in Latin America.
Juliette Carrillo is an American theatre director, playwright, and filmmaker. She has directed plays and musicals at the Denver Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theater, South Coast Repertory, Mark Taper Forum, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Magic Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Arizona Theater Company, and the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. For seven years, she served as an Artistic Associate of South Coast Repertory and led their Hispanic Playwright’s Project. She is also a member of Cornerstone Theatre Company, where she writes and directs community-centered new plays. Carrillo primarily develops new plays and has directed workshops at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public, INTAR, and The Women’s Project. She has received the Princess Grace Award and the National Endowment of the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Directing Fellowship.
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