San Francisco’s Magic Theatre to Honor Arts Philanthropist Author/Playwright Octavio Solis and Arts Philanthropist Rebecca Eisen at 2019 Magic Masquerade Gala: Warhol’s Factory

Thursday, May 16, 2019
6:99 P.M.
Gallery 308 (at Fort Mason)

By Elia Esparza

Acclaimed American Playwright and author Octavio Solis will be one of the two recipients of the coveted Sam Shepard Legacy Award at the upcoming San Francisco’s Magic Theatre’s Magic Masquerade Gala on May 16, 2019 at Gallery 308 in San Francisco.

Solis’ play Se Llama Cristina was produced at Magic Theatre in 2014. He is the author of over 20 plays and is considered one of the most prominent Latino playwrights in America. Solis’ works draw on and transcend the Mexican-American experience. He is a writer and a director whose style defies formula, examining the darkness, magic and humor of humanity with brutal honesty and characteristic intensity. He brings his signature imaginative with his book, Retablos: Stories From A Life Lived Along The Border. And, it has to be mentioned that Solis served as one of the three cultural consultants on the hit animation, Coco. He worked with Marcela Davidson Aviles and Lalo Alcaraz.

Latin Heat caught up with the playwright and he was gracious in sharing some insights on his life as a playwright and what his upcoming Magic Theatre’s recognition means to him.

LatinHeat: Congratulations on another great recognition. How excited are you to be one of the recipients the Sam Shepard Legacy Award?

Octavio Solis: It’s a significant honor because Sam was always one of my models for how to lead a playwright’s life. He never cared what anyone thought, never tailored his work to please anyone, and always told the truth as he saw it. I’ve come nowhere near matching those tenets but I use them as a marker.

LH: In our Latin Heat humble opinion, being a playwright is no picnic — I believe that of all the Hollywood entertainment writing medium’s (Film, TV…) writing a play is the hardest. What was it about this particular medium that captured your heart and soul enough to make it your life’s calling? 

OS: It is a picnic… in hell. I live most of my life behind a computer screen tapping out the ghost inside me, and then I rewrite the whole mess again and again and again. But at least I get to do it on my terms. In Hollywood, the writer is the low Joe on the totem pole, and what is written is usually done in teams and still rates low compared to the director’s vision and the producer’s say. I have been spoiled on the autonomy and the respect that theatres give my work. No director in Hollywood ever turns to the writer to ask ‘Are we doing it? Is this what you want?’ Yet this is what I have experienced. 

What really makes this picnic complete is that I love actors, and I love direct contact with them and their remarkable skills. And I really dig the live experience. Audiences change the show nightly, just by being there and reacting.  

LH: Of all of your theatrical properties, which one(s) would make a great movie or TV drama series?

OS: I don’t wanna even go there, because my plays are written specifically for the stage. They employ magical properties, lyrical language and heightened situations that everyone in the theatre gets, but in the translation to the big or small screen (or even smaller screen), all of these distinctly theatrical qualities would be flattened out.

LH: What is next on your list of creativity?

OS: I’m working on a piece called Scene With Cranes, a play written for Duende Cal Arts. It’s a work that deals with a mother’s grief for her murdered son and contains a scene which utilizes Sibelius’ orchestral work of the same title. 

LH: Amazing! No doubt Scene With Cranes will be a powerful story.
For young up-and-comer playwrights, what words of advice would you give them?

OS: Go mad. Write with madness. Throw the rules out and put your fuckin’ soul on the line. 

LH: You’re an author, tells about your book(s).

OS: I’ve recently published a collection of stories drawing on memoir moments of my life called Retablos. It’s really opened up my horizons in ways I never imagined and given my dramatic work a freshness that was lacking before. I hope to publish more fiction (and probably less plays) in the years to come. 

Thank you, Octavio Solis!

Octavio Solis’ newest recognition as one of the two recipients of the annual Sam Shepard Legacy Award by San Francisco’s Magic Theatre is seals him as one of one of America’s most important Latino playwrights. The way his imaginative and ever-evolving work continues to cross cultural and aesthetic boundaries, solidifies him as one of the great playwrights of our time.

Solis is repped by Bret Adams Agency.