Ernie De Silva
Ernie De Silva (he/him) is hardly typical in any sense of the word. He is a product of Bushwick projects in Brooklyn New York. It was on those street corners that Ernie got his first taste of life in front of live audiences. As Ernie grew so did his love for performing.
At age 17 Ernie became fascinated with people like Flip Wilson, Freddie Prinze, and Richard Pryor. Consequently, stand-up comedy drew him to the public stage at places like Stand Up New York, The Comic Strip, and the Comedy Cellar. However, stand-up proved to be too limiting for him and eventually, his musical side also came calling to be recognized.
While embarking on his tutelage in guitar styles which ranged from classical to blues (most of which he taught himself while sleeping on couches, and even a few nights riding freight trains around the country) Ernie found inspiration in the voices of titans like Andres Segovia, John McLaughlin, Paco De Lucia, Son House, and Jimi Hendrix.
Later on, Ernie would go on to become the first member of his family to graduate college. He holds a Bachelor’s in Acting from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and an MFA from the University of Southern California where he was awarded the only full scholarship in his class. It was during his time at USC that Ernie developed his award-winning world-traveled solo show, Heavy Like the Weight of a Flame.
Smoke is the heavily awaited sequel to Heavy.
When Ernie is not on stage you can find him teaching theater to incarcerated youth and teens around the inner city of Los Angeles.
Ernie will be working with Hi-ARTS through our CRITICAL BREAKS Residency. His project Smoke is a solo-driven story about an artist (Ernie) who finds himself in the middle of a battle between two forces for who will control his creative voice. One of them is the spirit of one of his ancestors (Smoke) who is haunting him. The other voice is a pharmaceutical drug the artist is purposely taking to forcefully lock his creative voice up.
Image courtesy of Erin De Silva
