Edrass Chavez-Alvarado knows that not everything happens on schedule. It didn’t happen with his college education, with his career decision or even with his desire to showcase the work of contemporary Puerto Rican playwright Jose Rivera.
But the time is finally right for Chavez-Alvarado, a semi-non-traditional senior at Monmouth College, to not only bring Rivera’s work to campus, but to direct it, as well.
Monmouth’s theatre department will stage Rivera’s Marisol Sept. 26-28, and will do so in the intimate Hewes Library Studio Theatre, which will play a role in the production, just as Calista Lythgoe ’26 of Boulder, Colorado, will play the title role.
How he decided on ‘Marisol’
As a freshman, Chavez-Alvarado was assigned “to pick out a monologue that reflects you as an individual. So I looked up Puerto Rican playwrights, and one that kept coming up was Jose Rivera. I started reading some of his work, and it’s really great stuff. I read Marisol, and I thought, ‘Oh, my god, the language is beautiful.'”
But there was a problem. Rivera typically writes female protagonists, and the monologues Chavez-Alvarado kept finding weren’t suited for him.
“I thought, ‘I wish I could say it, but it’s for a woman,” he said.
But Chavez-Alvarado is uniquely qualified on campus to direct the production, thanks to his Puerto Rican heritage and the two years he spent living and working in New York City, albeit not the post-apocalyptic NYC where Marisol takes place.
“What do you do when life gets upside down? You let people see it live,” said Chavez-Alvarado as a cryptic plot summary.
And not just see it, but be immersed in it, as “the actors and the audience will exist on the same floor.”
“Typically, when you go the theatre, you could look down at the stage and say, ‘Well, that’s happening down there – I don’t need to worry about it,'” said Chavez-Alvarado. “But if you’re in the audience (for Marisol), you’ll want to keep your feet back, because a lot of the acting will be really up close. Longtime viewers of Monmouth theatre can leave their preconceptions of what kind of shows we do here at the door. I don’t even know if it’s the door – leave them in the parking lot or just leave them at home. In many ways, this production will be unlike any we’ve done before. The story doesn’t happen on the stage. It happens in front of you.”
How he decided on theatre
By the time he was in his seventh year beyond his high school graduation, Chavez-Alvarado planned to be somewhere in the midst of medical school on his way to becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon. That plan was set in place in fourth grade, when he learned the profession was least likely to be taken over by robots (“less than a 0.1% chance”). Job security and the opportunity to “make a lot of money” were all the reasons he needed to focus his efforts on that career, including his choice of high school, Chicago’s Crane Medical Prep.
It was still his path after choosing Monmouth – more on that below – but he gradually pulled away from it and then, thanks to a life-altering conversation with professor Todd Quick, embraced theatre completely.
“I started out as a biology major, then neuroscience, then a neuroscience and theatre education double major,” said Chavez-Alvarado. “The ‘education’ part made it easier to tell my mother. I could do what I was doing in neuroscience and do A and B work, but it wasn’t fun. I realized, ‘This isn’t it.'”
But what was? He really couldn’t say, after believing for many years that his Plan A was going to stick.
“I was talking with Professor Quick, and I said, ‘I might as well drop out.’ He said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I just told you, I don’t know.’ He said, ‘You’re not listening to me. What do really want to do?’ Finally, I just threw my hands up and I said, ‘I guess I want to be a famous actor.’ It just clicked for me right then. I don’t HAVE to be a neurosurgeon. Why not make it theatre if that’s what I want to do?”
He has enjoyed watching Marisol come to life for four or five hours each night during the rehearsal process.
“I can read through the script and pre-block and do sound design, but that can be stagnant,” he said. “But watching it come to life each night in front of me, I’m just transported. It’s been a lovely, lovely experience.”
How he decided on Monmouth
Chavez-Alvarado’s decision to attend Monmouth was much less, well, dramatic, but it still came with an asterisk. Coming out of Crane Prep, he was sold on Monmouth, but he needed to serve a mission first, which is how he wound up in the Big Apple.
He told his admission counselors at the time that he’d still like to go to Monmouth after he honored his commitment. They said they’d hold a spot for him, and they even locked in his pre-pandemic tuition rate.
“That was a nice bonus,” said Chavez-Alvarado, who recalled his first visit to campus, while still at Crane.
“It was on a windy, snowy day with about 30 or 40 other kids from Chicago on a Greyhound bus,” he said. “I was out on a tour with several other people, but I just felt like that tour guide really wanted me at Monmouth. Professor (Audra) Goach did a teaching demo. I think it was with confetti poppers. The whole time, I just felt seen, that I’m not a number. I didn’t feel that at other places,” even schools smaller than Monmouth.
# # #
Monmouth College will present “Marisol” at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26-27 and at 2 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Hewes Library Studio Theatre on campus. Tickets can be purchased online at www.purplepass.com/organizer/61829. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and students, and $6 for students and faculty with a Monmouth College ID.
***Courtesy of Barry McNamara, Monmouth College***
