Leo Garcia
Credits
Year | Job Title Project Type |
Project Name Director / Company |
Location |
---|---|---|---|
2017 |
Artistic Director / Executive Director
Event |
Highways Leo Garcia / Highways Performance Space |
Highways |
Education
Year | Qualification | Where |
---|---|---|
1982 | Master of Fine Arts | The Asolo Conservatory |
Equipment
My Equipment/Kit:
I can use:
About me
Leo Garcia is a filmmaker, performance curator, producer, visual artist, actor and an award-winning playwright and has served as Highways Performance Space's Artistic Director since 2003 where he has developed and presented over 650 performance works. His work is Influenced by the didactic of agitprop and inspired by the optimism of the naive. http://www.leogarcia.com
Garcia produced the independent full length feature Excess Flesh, a psychological thriller with tones of body horror: " a modern day Los Angeles. the entrapment of dreams. the prison of self. a la Polanski, Zulawski, von Trier." Excess Flesh premiered at SXSW on Friday, March 13, 2015. Theatrically, Excess Flesh was released for a one-week Limited Engagement in Los Angeles in October, 2105. The film is distributed by Midnight Releasing and is available on VOD/DVD on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and others. http://www.excessfleshmovie.com
Garcia also produced "ten minutes is two hours," a short-form documentary video shot in South Sudan. ten minutes is two hours is both a work of and a commentary on cultural exploitation. It is a self-consciously “cinematic” recreation of a journey through a land plagued by the ghosts of colonialism and the present anxiety of conflicting religious and political agendas – both of which can often seem one and the same. Evoking a surreal sense of place, both very present and very distant, the video depicts the hazy lines between notions of “foreign aid” “missionary practice” and “colonialism,” and shows the ways history has of recycling itself. The essayistic, experimental nature of the work is inspired by the politically charged silent-era montage of Dovzhenko, Vertov, and Eisenstein and the later impressionistic film and video works of Marker and Godard. http://www.http://tenminutesfilm.com
As a playwright, Garcia has chronicled his family’s genealogy, ten-generations + of New Mexican family history, in his cycle of plays entitled The Abduction of Hernan Cortes: The New Mexico Cycle. The cycle explores the themes of abduction: of land, of self, and of alien abduction, and follows the lives of five New Mexican families from 1598 to present.
After receiving his MFA from the Asolo Conservatory, Garcia moved to New York City where he worked as an actor and playwright, originating roles in John Jeserun's "Dog's Eye View" at La MaMa; Eduardo Machado's "Fabiola" at Theatre for the New City, and Maria Irene Fornes' "Cold Air" at the International Arts Relations Theatre (INTAR). Garcia also originated the role of Nathan Leopold at NYC's Jewish Repertory Theatre in his play about the relationship between Leopold and Richard Loeb and their psychological crime. That same play was submitted to Ms. Fornes for consideration as playwright in residence at INTAR, where Garcia began his career as a playwright and served five residencies under the direction of Ms. Fornes.
Garcia has appeared in over 30 off-Broadway and regional theatre works and hosted the Emmy nominated NBC Special, Another American, followed by television work in Los Angeles, where he guest starred in episodic television, including his favorite, Star Trek the Next Generation, and was a regular on the daytime drama serial Santa Barbara.
Additional skills:
Leo Garcia is a filmmaker, performance curator, producer, visual artist, actor and an award-winning playwright and has served as Highways Performance Space's Artistic Director since 2003 where he has developed and presented over 650 performance works. His work is Influenced by the didactic of agitprop and inspired by the optimism of the naive.
Industry awards:
Most recently, the Los Angeles Stage Raw Theater Awards awarded Garcia with the 2016 Queen of the Angels Award. Garcia was "honored for his tenacity and skill while serving as artistic director for Highways in Santa Monica – recognition that his social media supporters described as “long overdue.”"
Garcia’s plays have won awards from The National Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Communications Group, New York Foundation for the Arts, Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Repertory, The National Hispanic Media Coalition, and MCA/Universal.
His works have been developed and presented by numerous nationally-established companies and presenters, including The New York Shakespeare Public Festival (The Public, NYC), The Jewish Repertory Theatre (NYC), International Arts Relations Theatre (INTAR, NYC), The Los Angeles Theater Center, The South Coast Repertory Theatre (Costa Mesa, CA), The Tiffany Theatre (L.A.), and Santa Fe Stages, among many others.
In 2010, Garcia was honored by the HARC Foundation as a recipient of Trumpet Award for "his unique and extraordinary contributions to the Arts and to humanity."
Out Magazine recognized Garcia as one of the OUT 100 of 2005, a list of the year's most interesting, influential, and newsworthy LGBTQ people as a result of his many contributions to the arts as well as his indefatigable activism on behalf of alternative artists and the alternative arts community through the support and presentation of their performance works and in service to the community at large.
Additional information:
Garcia worked for many years with his mentor internationally acclaimed playwright and director Maria Irene Fornes. He has the unique and distinct honor of being a member of the orginal writers in Fornes' playwright residency program at INTAR in NYC. He worked with Fornes as both a writer and actor. He has been directed by her in her plays in New York, Los Angeles and Siena, Italy at the Dionysia World Festival. Notably, Fornes also directed Garcia's play, Dogs, at West Coast Ensemble Theater in Los Angeles. Garcia is one of two living playwrights whose work Fornes chose to direct.
He has appeared in over 30 off-Broadway and regional theatre works and hosted the Emmy nominated NBC Special, Another American, followed by television work in Los Angeles, where he guest starred in episodic television, including his favorite, Star Trek the Next Generation, and was a regular on the daytime drama serial Santa Barbara.
While in Los Angeles, Garcia wrote, produced and directed his first film, A Rainy Day, which was distributed by Universal Television and shown in festivals nationally and internationally. He served as an artist, teacher, director and producer for numerous productions and classes at Highways Performance Space; resident playwright with the Mark Taper Forum's Latino Theatre Initiative; and project artistic director and playwright with the community-based San Diego Playwrights Project. Garcia has also been a fixture on the Los Angeles alternative performing arts scene for many years, one of a handful of artists who represent a fully developed, professional approach to multidisciplinary work. His solo performance works include "My Alien Abduction" and "Leo Garcia is Dead."
Skills
Job Titles | Director, Producer, Creative Director, General Staff, Teacher |
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Years in industry | 6+ years |
Organisations / Memberships | AEA (US) |