Luis works in plays, poetry, short stories, performance and journalism. Chicano born and raised in the Pico-Union district of downtown Los Angeles, he is the recipient, among other awards, of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and an NEA/TCG residency grant. He has been a resident artist at the Mark Taper Forum, where he is co-director of the Latino Theatre Initiative. He was a visiting artist to The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and has toured his work throughout the United States, England, and Mexico.

In 2002 he was awarded the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays twice, for his plays Electricidad and Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Electricidad received its world premiere at the Borderlands Theatre in Tucson, Ariz., and was subsequently produced at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and has an upcoming production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

His short film, Chicanismo, was nominated for an Emmy award, won Best Experimental Film at the 1998 San Antonio CineFestival and was featured in San Francisco's CineAcción '98. A member of The Dramatists Guild, he is the winner of the 1998 National Hispanic Playwriting Competition and the 1997 Midwest PlayLabs for his play Straight As a Line. His play Bitter Homes and Gardens premiered in Los Angeles at Playwrights Arena. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner was commissioned by South Coast Rep and was workshopped at the Public Theater. He teaches throughout Los Angeles including the University of Southern California and California Institute of the Arts.

As an activist, he works with at-risk youth, has co-founded three non-profit arts organizations, and chaired the Gay Men of Color Consortium.