Marin Theatre Company Presents West Coast Premiere of LYDIA

Marin Theatre Company is pleased to present the West Coast premiere of Lydia by award-winning San Francisco playwright Octavio Solis. Lydia was the standout play at the Denver Center Theatre Company's Colorado New Play Summit in January 2008 and is in limited release for the 2008-2009 season. Two other theaters will produce Lydia this season: Yale Repertory Theatre, which will stage the East Coast premiere in February 2009; and the Mark Taper Forum, which will stage the second West Coast production in April 2009.

Set in 1970's El Paso, the Flores family is mired in grief, rage, and guilt over their daughter Ceci's debilitating accident on the eve of her quinceañera two years earlier. Locked inside her mind and body by her injuries, 17-year-old Ceci lives with her parents, devout and superstitious Rosa and short order cook Claudio, and her two brothers. Gentle younger brother Misha helps to look after Ceci and writes poetry, while older brother Rene gets into nightly fights with anyone who crosses his path. Cousin Alvaro has recently returned from Vietnam and inexplicably joined the Border Patrol. Into this damaged and explosive family comes Lydia, an illegal from Mexico, who is hired to help care for Ceci. When Ceci forms a nearly miraculous bond with Lydia, the family is elated. But their joy quickly turns to anger when the new relationship threatens to uncover disturbing family secrets.

The poetic, magical, shocking new play Lydia amazed audiences and drew critical comparisons to O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Miller's Death of a Salesman in its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre Company earlier this year. Critics are already calling Lydia the latest addition to the canon of epic American family plays.

"Everyone at MTC is honored to premiere this brave, passionate, and important new play on the West Coast, and we are thrilled to be working so closely with Octavio on its production. With Lydia, Octavio has unquestionably affirmed his place among our elite contemporary playwrights," said director Jasson Minadakis.

Plays by San Francisco playwright and director Octavio Solis include June in a Box, Lethe, Marfa Lights, Gibraltar, The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy, The Seven Visions of Encarnacion, Bethlehem, Dreamlandia, El Otro, Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, and La Posada Mágica.

His plays have been produced at Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, San Jose Repertory, South Coast Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center Theatre Company (which commissioned and premiered Lydia), and many other theaters around the country. Solis has received numerous awards, including the Roger L. Stevens award from the Kennedy Center, the TCG National Theatre Artists ResidenCy Grant, the National Latino Playwriting Award, and the 2008 NEA Distinguished New Play Development Project grant for John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven with Cal Shakes and Word for Word. He is presently working on an adaptation of Don Quixote for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2009 summer season. Solis is a Thornton Wilder Fellow for the MacDowell Colony, a New Dramatists alumnus, and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

The cast of Lydia includes Bay Area stage veterans Wilma Bonet as Rosa; Campo Santo founder Luis Saguar as Claudio; Elias Escobedo, seen recently in several Bay Area productions, as Alvaro; Gloria Garayua, familiar to audiences for her recurring role on the popular TV show Grey's Anatomy, as Ceci; New York actress Adriana Gaviria as Lydia; Los Angeles actor David Pintado as Misha; and Lakin Valdez, son of playwright and director Luis Valdez (Zoot Suit), as Rene.

The full script for Lydia has been published in its entirety in the December 2008 issue of American Theatre.

Please note: this play contains nudity and extreme situations. It is not appropriate for children.

For more information visit www.marintheatre.org or call 415.388.5208.