LUIS VALDEZ

'Luis Valdez' (born June 26, 1940) is an American playwright, writer and film director.
He is regarded as the father of Chicano theater in the United States.^[1]

Contents

Biography

Education

Career background

''Zoot Suit'' (play and film)

''La Bamba''

Honors and awards (not inclusive)

Filmography

References

External links

Biography

Education

Valdez was born in Delano, California to migrant farm worker parents. Valdez graduated from James Lick High School in San Jose and went on attend San Jose State University (SJSU) on a scholarship for math and physics. He later switched his major and earned a degree in English in 1964.
According to Valdez when he was six years old, he watched a teacher use part of a paper bag to make papier-mâché masks for a theater production. This experience transformed him and would have a lasting effect. In college it helped lead him to the theater. Valdez's first full-length play, ''The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa.'' debuted at SJSU in 1963.^[2]

Career background

After graduation, Valdez spent the next few months with The San Francisco Mime Troupe, where he was introduced to agitprop theatre.
In 1965, Valdez returned to Delano, where he formed ''El Teatro Campesino'', a farm workers' theater troupe. Valdez's ''teatro'' was influential, according to ''Gale Resources'', "[T]hanks to Valdez and ''El Teatro Campesino''. What began as a farm workers' theater in the migrant camps of Delano now exploded into a national Chicano theater movement. Theater groups sprang up with surprising speed on college campuses and in communities throughout the United States."^[3]
As a media figure of the Chicano Movement, Valdez often lectures about ''El Teatro Campesino,'' media representations of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, and the importance of Chicano-produced media in order to help countering negative ethnic stereotypes.
Mr. Valdez is a founding faculty member and director (c. 1994) of the California State University, Monterey Bay, Teledramatic Arts and Technology Department. He is helping develop a university program that prepares students in the entertainment industry: filmmaking, writing, sound, cinematography, and the like.^[4][5]

''Zoot Suit'' (play and film)

Valdez's first work that brought him some attention to larger audiences was the play ''Zoot Suit'' which ran in 1978 at the Mark Taper Forum, in Los Angeles and played for forty-six weeks to more than 40,000 people. With ''Zoot Suit,'' Valdez became the first Chicano director to have a play presented on Broadway in 1979. Later, it was made into a film in 1981.^[6]
In ''Zoot Suit'', Luis Valdez weaves a story involving the real-life events of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial--when a group of young Mexican-Americans were wrongfully charged with murder--and the Zoot Suit Riots.

''La Bamba''

The film that brought Valdez his "breakthrough into mainstream America" was ''La Bamba'' which debuted in 1987. The film, about a popular Chicano 1950s rock and roller, "was an overwhelming box office success" according to ''BookRags.''^[7]

Honors and awards (not inclusive)

★ Golden Globe Award nominations for "Best Musical Picture," ''Zoot Suit'' and ''La Bamba.''

★ Cartagena Film Festival, Best Picture Award, ''Zoot Suit,'' 1982, Cartagena, Colombia.

★ George Peabody Award for excellence in television in 1987, ''Corridos: Tales of Passion and Revolution'' for PBS.

★ California Governor's Award, March, 1990.

★ Mexico's ''Aguila Azteca'' Award, 1994.

Filmography

★ ''The Cisco Kid'' (1994), writer and director. Valdez also had a small role as ''Presidente'' Benito Juárez.

★ ''La Pastorela'' (1991), writer and director.

★ ''Corridos: Tales of Passion & Revolution'' (1987), writer and director.

★ ''La Bamba'' (1987), writer and director.

★ ''Chicanos Story'' (1982), writer and director.

★ ''Zoot Suit'' (1981), writer and director.

References

1. Luis Valdez at the Internet Movie Database.
2. Bedford/St Martin's Literature web site.
3. ''Gale Resources'' web site.
4. Harry Walker Speakers Agency biography.
5. Monterey State web page.
6. Hayward, Carl. Community Arts Network interview with Valdez.
7. ''BookRags'' web page.

External links

★ .

★ Monterey Bay State TAT Department.