Luis Alfaro is a Chicano playwright born and raised in downtown Los Angeles. He is the 2024 TCG World Theatre Artist and recipient of the 2024 award in literature from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, popularly known as a “genius grant”, awarded to people who have demonstrated expertise and exceptional creativity in their respective fields; United States Artists; Ford Foundation Art of Change; Joyce Foundation; Mellon Foundation and is the recipient of the PEN America/Laura Pels International Foundation Theater Award for a Master Dramatist. He was the inaugural Playwright-in-Residence for six seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2013-2019); Playwright’s Ensemble at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre (2013-2020); Inaugural Latinx Playwrights at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (2021-); and Ojai Playwrights Conference member from 2002-2022. He developed and produced plays at the Mark Taper Forum/CTG (1995-2005, 2021-2022). His plays include Aztlan, Earlimart, The Travelers, Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, Mojada, Delano, and have been seen at regional theatres throughout the United States, Latin America, Canada, and Europe. He is director of the MFA in Dramatic Writing at the University of Southern California. Luis spent two decades in the Los Angeles Poetry and Performance Art communities.