Photo Credit: Joe Mazza/Brave Lux
Biography
Alvaro Saar Rios is a Texican playwright and educator living in Chicago. His plays have been performed in New York City, Mexico City, Hawaii, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and all over Texas. He has received playwriting commissions from various organizations, including Kennedy Center, Chicago Children’s Theatre, First Stage, Houston Grand Opera, Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Alley Theatre, Purple Rose Theatre Company, Express Children’s Theatre, Milwaukee’s United Community Center, Talento Bilingüe de Houston, Houston Community College, and Zoological Society of Milwaukee.
His plays include Luchadora!, Unmuted, The Day the Music Came Back, and Piggsville, a quasi-adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He also wrote a stage adaptation of New York Times best seller Carmela Full of Wishes. His collection of short plays is called Musings of a Crazy Texican.
Alvaro holds an MFA in Writing for the Stage and Screen from Northwestern University. He is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists and Playwright-In-Residence at Milwaukee’s First Stage. Alvaro is also a proud veteran of the US Army. He used to drive M1A1 tanks.
Rios cofounded The Royal Mexican Players with his wife, Michelle Lopez-Rios. He is also an Associate Professor of Playwriting at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
