STAGE TUBE: I AM THEATRE Project - Luis Valdez

BroadwayWorld.com is excited to share a weekly series developed by the Theatre Communications Group! This week Luis Valdez shares pivotal moments in his theatre career and why the arts matter to him!

Luis Valdez is regarded as one of the most important and influential American Playwrights living today. His internationally renowned and Obie award winning theater company, El Teatro Campesino (The Farm Workers' Theater) was founded in 1965 -- in the heat of the United Farm Workers (UFW) struggle and the Great Delano Grape Strike in California's Central Valley. His involvement with Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the early Chicano Movement left an indelible mark that remained embodied in all his work even after he left the UFW in 1967: his early actos LAS DOS CARAS DEL PATRONCITO and QUINTA TEMPORADA, (short plays written to encourage campesinos to leave the fields and join the UFW), his mitos (mythic plays) BERNABE and LA CARPA DE LOS RASQUACHIS that gave Chicanos their own contemporary mythology, his examinations of Chicano urban life IN I DON'T HAVE TO SHOW YOU NO STINKIN' BADGES, his Chicano re-visioning of classic Mexican folktales CORRIDOS, his exploration of his Indigenous Yaqui roots in MUMMIFIED DEER, and -- of course -- the play that re-exams the "Sleepy Lagoon Trial of 1942" and the "Zoot Suit Riots of 1943", two of the darkest moments in LA urban history -- ZOOT SUIT -- considered a masterpiece of the American Theater as well as the first Chicano play on Broadway and the first Chicano major feature film. Luis numerous feature film and television credits include, among others, the box office hit film "La Bamba" starring Lou Diamonds Phillips, "Cisco Kid" starring Jimmy Smits and Cheech Marin and Corridos: "Tales of Passion and Revolution" starring Linda Ronstadt. Luis has never strayed far from his own farm worker roots. His company, El Teatro Campesino, is located 60 miles south of San Jose in the rural community of San Juan Bautista, CA. This theater, tucked away in San Benito County, is the most important and longest running Chicano Theater in the United States. Luis' hard work and long creative career have won him countless awards including numerous LA Drama Critic Awards, Dramalogue Awards, Bay Area Critics Awards, the prestigious George Peabody Award for excellence in television, the Presidential Medal of the Arts, the Governor's Award for the California Arts Council, and Mexico's prestigious Aguila Azteca Award given to individuals whose work promotes cultural excellence and exchange between US and Mexico. Luis has written numerous plays, authored numerous articles and books. His latest anthology Mummified Deer and Other Plays was recently published by Arte Publico Press. As an educator, he has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Fresno State University and was one of the founding professors of CSU Monterey Bay. He is the recipient of honorary doctorates from, among others, the University of Rhode Island, the University of South Florida, Cal Arts, the University of Santa Clara, and his alma mater, San Jose State University. Luis was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. In 2007 he was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship as one of fifty US artists so honored across the United States.

I AM THEATRE spotlights the stories of theatre practitioners, in their own words. With 50 videos over the next 50 weeks, TCG is celebrating its 50th anniversary by sharing stories from a diverse group of people who are creating, supporting, and engaging with theatre. YOU ARE THEATRE: We want to hear your stories! TCG will release a new video each week of individuals sharing pivotal moments in theatre - and hope they will inspire you to tell your stories too. Join us as we seek to raise the international awareness of the depth, diversity and impact of the theatre field. WE ARE THEATRE! Today, not-for-profit professional theatres in the U.S. employ 130,000 people annually, inspire more than 30 million attendees and contribute $2 billion directly to the U.S. economy. What if thousands of theatre artists across the world posted their own video testimonies of why they do what they do and why theatre matters? How might that transform communities' awareness of our work? Please share the stories we've recorded, and we'll share the videos you make, and together we'll testify in a voIce That everyone will hear...I AM THEATRE. YOU ARE THEATRE. WE ARE THEATRE!

For 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 13,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the US Center of the InterNational TheatreInstitute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 11 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org