Draft:Leo Garcia
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Comment: Full of peacock words and phrases that are not substantiated by references. MarcGarver (talk) 08:34, 16 June 2025 (UTC)
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Leo Garcia is an American filmmaker, playwright, producer, actor, multidisciplinary visual and performance artist, and arts curator. He is widely recognized for his leadership at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, California, and for his innovative contributions to inter-disciplinary performance, LGBTQIA+ arts, and independent cinema. Garcia's multidisciplinary body of work spans theater, film, television, and performance, often engaging with themes of cultural identity, social justice, and narrative exploration.
Early life and education
[edit]Leo Garcia earned his Master of Fine Arts from the Asolo Conservatory. He launched his professional artistic career in New York City, working as both an actor and a playwright. Garcia worked closely with his "Maestra," playwright and director Maria Irene Fornes, completing five residencies in INTAR's Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Laboratory. Garcia worked as an actor in Fornes' productions of Terra Incognita, both in Sienna, Italy at the Dionysia World Festival and in Los Angeles' Padua Playwrights Festival.[1][2]
Career
[edit]Theater
[edit]Garcia's early theatrical works were developed and produced at INTAR, the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, the Jewish Repertory Theatre, and other Off-Broadway venues. His play Dogs, directed by Fornes, received critical notice in the Los Angeles Times in 1990.[3]
He was later awarded a playwright fellowship through the Mark Taper Forum's Latino Theater Initiative, where he developed Beautiful, Beauty: A Dream Story, and Terra Cotta. In 1999, Garcia received a NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights grant at Santa Fe Stages to develop his play Earth, part of a larger cycle, The Abduction of Hernan Cortes: The New Mexico Cycle, tracing ten generations of New Mexican family history.[4]
Solo performance and visual art
[edit]Garcia's solo works, including My Alien Abduction and Leo Garcia is Dead, were produced prior to his directorship at Highways. Artillery Magazine reviewed My Alien Abduction as a multimedia installation exploring memory, identity, and alienation.[5] A second review in TribeLA Magazine described the piece as “bringing cultural abduction and appropriation to the forefront.”[6]
Highways Performance Space
[edit]Since 2003, Garcia has served as Artistic Director and later Executive Director of Highways Performance Space. Under his leadership, the venue presented over 1500 performance works and became a nationally recognized hub for experimental and LGBTQIA+ performance. Garcia co-founded the Film Maudit 2.0 Festival and curated programming that foregrounded interdisciplinary and underrepresented voices.[7]
Film and video
[edit]Garcia produced the feature film Excess Flesh (2015), a psychological thriller that premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) and was released theatrically in Los Angeles.[8][9]
He also produced the short documentary ten minutes is two hours, filmed in South Sudan, which examines post-colonial humanitarian practices through an experimental lens.[10]
Garcia is currently in post-production on his feature film Earth or The Monster of Tierra Amarilla, a work of magical realism that he wrote and produced. The project was a 2020–21 Creation Fund awardee from the National Performance Network.[11]
Acting
[edit]Garcia has appeared in more than 30 Off-Broadway and regional theater productions. On television, he held guest roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Tour of Duty, and was a regular on the soap opera Santa Barbara. He also hosted the Emmy-nominated NBC special Another American.[12]
Awards and recognition
[edit]- Out Magazine Out 100 (2005)[13]
- HARC Foundation Trumpet Award (2010)[14]
- Stage Raw Queen of the Angels Award (2016)[15]
- New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship[16]
- NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Grant (1999)
Selected works
[edit]- Dogs
- Beautiful
- Beauty: A Dream Story
- Terra Cotta
- The Abduction of Hernan Cortes: The New Mexico Cycle
- Excess Flesh (Producer)
- ten minutes is two hours (Producer)
- Earth or The Monster of Tierra Amarilla (Writer/Producer)
External links
[edit]- Leo Garcia at IMDb
- Official site for Earth or The Monster of Tierra Amarilla
- Highways Performance Space
- Out Magazine 2005 OUT 100 listing
- National Performance Network – Creation Fund Awardees
- Artillery Magazine review of My Alien Abduction
- TribeLA Magazine review of My Alien Abduction
- SXSW event listing for Excess Flesh
- TCG/NEA Theatre Residency Program overview
References
[edit]- ^ "Fornes' New Vision in 'Terra Incognita'". Los Angeles Times. 1994-07-25.
- ^ "Terra Incognita". Theater. 24 (2): 99–119. 1994.
- ^ Sylvie Drake (1990-04-27). "THEATER REVIEW : 'Dogs': Where the Mutt Is a Metaphor". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "TCG/NEA Theatre Residency Program Overview".
- ^ "Leo Garcia: Alien Abduction". Artillery Magazine. 24 February 2017.
- ^ "Leo Garcia's Alien Abduction Exhibit". TribeLA Magazine.
- ^ "Highways Celebrates 35 Years – Interview with Leo Garcia and Patrick Kennelly". 30 May 2024.
- ^ "SXSW 2015: Excess Flesh".
- ^ Robert Abele (2015-10-30). "Review: 'Excess Flesh' is a nasty tale of roommates gone awry". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "ten minutes is two hours – IMDb". IMDb.
- ^ "Creation Fund Awardees – 2020–21". National Performance Network. Retrieved 2025-06-15.
- ^ "Leo Garcia – IMDb". IMDb.
- ^ Out Magazine – Dec 2005. Here. December 2004.
- ^ "HARC Foundation – Trumpet Award Recipients".
- ^ "2nd Annual Stage Raw Awards Winners Announced".
- ^ "NYFA Artist Directory" (PDF).