Expertise:
Community-Based Theatre, Minority Representation in Theatre, Playwrighting, Community Engagement in Theatre, Activist TheatreBernardo Solano is an expert in playwriting and directing community-based theatre projects. Solano has written 30 plays and librettos with all but one being produced at a theatre. He has written radio dramas and film/television scripts for PBS, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount and Universal Studios.
Solano, born in Colombia, South America, is deeply invested in the immigrant experience being represented in film, television and theatre. His more recent community-based work includes plays about immigrant day laborers in Los Angeles and Cal Poly Pomona veterans and military affiliated students. This project involved professional theatre artists who collaborated with military affiliated students and staff at the on-campus Veterans Resource Center and how they grappled with the legacy of military service on-campus and abroad.
Recent Grants and Fellowships:
- U.S. Fulbright Scholar Award to Colombia, 2010
- Ford Foundation Grant, Towne Street Theatre, 2008
- Fulbright Alumni Initiatives Award, University of Zimbabwe, 2005
Selected Publications:
- “Grappling the Whys, How’s and Ends of Collaboratively Developed Activist Theatre,” Staging Social Justice (N. Bowles, D.R. Nadon, Southern Illinois University Press, 2014)
Education:
B.A., Theatre-Acting, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
M.F.A., Playwriting, Yale University
Languages:
English and Spanish