Octavio Solis ’80 Returns to Campus for Residency

Playwright and Trinity University alumnus Octavio Solis ’80 is returning to campus for a residency this spring with Trinity’s human communication and theatre department and will host several public events related to theatre, politics, and his forthcoming play, In the Clearing.

Since his time as a student, Solis has always been passionate about theatre. “The years I spent at Trinity were deeply influential and immersive. I thought, ate, and drank theatre practically the entire time,” he says.

After graduation, Solis continued pursuing his interests in theatre at the Dallas Theater Center in an offsite Trinity graduate program. While Solis originally intended to pursue acting, he found himself being sucked into playwriting. “Once I hit the streets, I realized I wasn’t going to get the parts I wanted. So, I started writing plays that featured myself in order to audition for other directors and also to keep my chops up,” he says. “Somebody had to cast me, so I cast myself.”

Throughout his career, Solis has authored more than 20 plays, earning him the consideration as one of the most prominent Latino playwrights in America. With works that both draw on and transcend the Mexican-American experience, he is a writer and director whose style defies formula, examining the darkness, magic, and humor of humanity with brutal honesty and characteristic intensity. His imaginative and ever-evolving work continues to cross cultural and aesthetic boundaries, solidifying him as one of the great playwrights of our time.

During his residency and as a Stieren Guest Artist with the Trinity theatre department, Solis will direct the world premiere of his new play, In the Clearing, in collaboration with Trinity students. The premiere will run from April 4-6 and April 9-12, 2025, in Stieren Theater.

Solis believes that at the intersection of dramatic arts and political life lies the power of storytelling. On Wednesday, March 5, from 4-5 p.m. in Northup Hall 040, Solis will discuss these topics in an informal unscripted conversation with Trinity professors Roberto Prestigiacomo, Kathryn Vomero Santos, and Norma E. Cantú. The event titled “Plays, Politics, and the Power of Story” is part of Trinity’s The Conversation series, and is free and open to the public.

In addition to the dynamics between theatre and politics, Solis is intrigued by memory as a tool for writing, art, and love. On Monday, March 31, at 6 p.m., in the Skyline Room, Solis will give the 2025 Madrid Lecture titled “Memory: My Faulty Muse.”

“Memory either taints or gilds things. It covers them in beautiful lacquer, and so those memories become more seductive and evocative,” he says. “But the other memories, the darker memories, we sequester to the far corners. As an artist, I'm always about looking in those dark corners.” Solis will share how memory enables acts of love and art while coping with his mother’s Alzheimer’s Syndrome and the fears of inheriting it as well.

To retain the few memories of his childhood, Solis invents even more to compensate for the blank spaces already there. His memories act as a muse and tool for his work as a playwright. In some respects, Solis views writers as liars. They make up stories to get to the truth and embellish upon the facts to learn something deeper about themselves, and they cannibalize their pasts for character, plot, and theme. But for Solis, a deeper cultural memory persists in calling to a more tribal prehistory, one in which he is a citizen of no nation but a child of a tumultuous and complicated earth.

Each year, the Madrid Lecture and the Madrid Fund for Latin@ Artists present a lecture that celebrates and promotes the work and creations of Latinx artists. As a theatre artist with a Latino background, Solis applauds the aim of the Madrid Lecture and the Madrid Fund for Latin@ Artists. “It is also part of my mission to give work and inspiration to Latino actors and writers, so they can see me and go, ‘Oh, I can do that,’” he says.

Solis feels that he has a certain responsibility to spend his residency providing Trinity theatre students with a peak learning experience. “I’m not just there to instruct them,” he says, “I’m going to bring them up to the level of an individual that understands the responsibilities and burdens of the professional theatre world.”