Ashland New Plays Festival Presents New Work By Octavio Solis

Ashland New Plays Festival will present a virtual performance of new play Lonesomes by Octavio Solis on Saturday, February 27, at 7:00 pm PT and Sunday, February 28, at 2:00 pm PT, directed by ANPF's Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca.

Written in and for isolation, Lonesomes includes companion pieces Conrado featuring Armando Durán and Paisley Blue featuring Isabel Pask. These intimate, lyrical portraits of two people, separated by more than lockdowns and travel restrictions, show them grappling with the past and what it means for their future. Their stories include mature themes and may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

Each performance will conclude in a conversation with the playwright and director about creating and connecting during a global pandemic.

"Working with an artist like Octavio is a rare gift," says Apodaca, "He is collaborative, inventive, generous and just so kind. And his work is actually haunting. His characters are following me around, demanding attention."

Octavio Solis, one of the most prominent Latino playwrights in America, is a New York Times-recommended author for his memoir Retablos: Stories From a Life Lived Along the Border, has written numerous plays such as Lydia,Ghosts of the River, Cloudlands, Hole in the Sky, and his two latest plays Quixote Nuevo, which premiered at California Shakespeare Theatre in 2018, and Mother Road, which premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2019. A Thornton Wilder Fellow for the MacDowell Colony and a member of the Dramatists Guild, Solis was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. A Rogue Valley resident, Solis has been developing this new work for our current shared reality.

Lonesomes was written for a virtual platform. In part one, Conrado, Armando Durán plays a man dogged by his past sins, looking for companionship or maybe salvation. In part two we meet Pornhub worker, Jesse, who goes by the name of Paisley Blue. Played by Isabel Pask, Jesse is looking for someone to make her feel wanted, or at least not so alone.

The performances will be presented over Zoom with an evening and matinee option. Tickets are available on a sliding scale online at ashlandnewplays.org/season/.

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