Héctor ÁlvarezAssistant Teaching Professor, Theater Studies

Héctor Álvarez is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar working in theater, film, and contemporary opera. His research and practice bridge post-dramatic theater, the legacy of the avant-garde, non-Western traditions, contemplative performance, and his experiences working with incarcerated populations to investigate the ethical and aesthetic possibilities of the live event. His productions have been presented in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Mexico City and have been praised as “visually gorgeous and fulsome, so rich and sensitive in detail” (The Chicago Reader). A recipient of the Princess Grace Award and the Opera America Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Award, Héctor has also been a Drama League Directing Fellow, a Watson Fellow, and an artist-in-residence at the Antonio Gala Foundation in Spain. In 2025, he became a fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University, where he developed The School of Memory, an original multimedia piece exploring his family’s complex relationship with Spanish fascism. The show premiered at Theatre Y in Chicago in 2026. Recent directing credits include the operas Umbra, which he co-created with composer Elliot Menard, and Here Be Sirens by Kate Soper; the wordless plays My Foot My Tutor and The Water Station; Charges (The Supplicants) by Elfriede Jelinek, Roberto Zucco by Bernard-Marie Koltès, and We’re Gonna Die, a film re-imagining of Young Jean Lee’s existential cabaret about mortality. The film was created in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and was named one of 2020’s Top Cultural Picks by WDCB’s The Arts Section. Héctor is the founder of Stupleme, a collective of immigrant and BIPOC artists dedicated to formal experimentation. He holds an MFA in Directing from the California Institute of the Arts, an MA in Anglo-American Literature from University College London, and a BA from Macalester College.