Luis Valdez is regarded as one of the most important and influential American playwrights and filmmakers living today.
His internationally renowned, Obie Award-winning theater company El Teatro Campesino (the Farm Workers’ Theater) was founded by Luis 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 of his work even after he left the UFW in 1967. Some of his best-known works include Bernabe, La Carpa de los Rasquachis, the more recent Valley of the Heart, and his newest play, Adios Mama Carlota, which opened at the El Teatro Campesino Playhouse in May 2025.
In 1978, he wrote and directed Zoot Suit, the play that re-examines the Sleepy Lagoon Trial of 1942 and the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, two of the darkest moments in Los Angeles’ history. It is 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 the 1987 box-office hit film La Bamba, starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Mexican American rocker Ritchie Valens. Other film credits include The Cisco Kid (with Jimmy Smits) and the award-winning documentary Corridos: Tales of Passion and Revolution with Linda Ronstadt.
Luis’ hard work and long creative career, which includes teaching at the University of California, Berkley and UC Santa Cruz, have won him countless awards including the prestigious George Peabody Award for excellence in television, the Presidential Medal of the Arts, the Governor’s Award for the California Arts Council, a Rockefeller fellowship, and Mexico’s prestigious Aguila Azteca Award, given to individuals whose work promotes cultural excellence and exchange between U.S. and Mexico. In September 2016, he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts by President Barack Obama at the White House.
Luis Valdez will appear with ‘La Bamb’a at 7 pm Friday, July 18 and ‘Zoot Sui’t at 3 pm Saturday, July 19 in the Plaza Theatre.
