About

Alvaro Saar Rios is a Texican playwright living in Chicago who creates experiences for multi-generational audiences.  His plays have been performed in New York City, Mexico City, Hawaii, Chicago, Seattle, St. Louis, Milwaukee and all over Texas. He has received playwriting commissions from various organizations, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Chicago Children’s Theatre, First Stage, Houston Grand Opera, Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Alley Theatre, Purple Rose Theatre Company, Lexington Children’s Theatre, Houston Community College, and Zoological Society of Milwaukee.

His award-winning plays include Luchadora!, On The Wings of a Mariposa and Carmela Full of Wishes, a stage adaptation of Matt de la Peña’s children’s book.  Other plays include Piggsville, In Darkness, Audio Flowers Bloom, and Unmuted, a virtual musical he co-created with composer Deborah Wicks La Puma.  Alvaro is currently writing a play for the BIPOC Superhero Project, a new stage adaptation of Pam Muñoz Ryan’s iconic novel Esperanza Rising, and a novel based on his award-winning play Luchadora!

Alvaro holds an MFA in Writing for the Stage and Screen from Northwestern University,  a BA in English–Creative Writing from the University of Houston and an AA in Communications from Houston Community College.  He is Playwright-In-Residence at Milwaukee's First Stage and a former Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists.  A proud veteran of the US Army, Alvaro used to drive M1A1 tanks. He also used to sing for a death metal band that you’ve never heard of.

Rios co-founded The Royal Mexican Players with his wife, Michelle Lopez-Rios. Since 2004, they created original scripted and devised plays.  They also developed workshops for high schools, colleges and conferences, including Texas A&M University, Palo Alto College, Voice & Speech Teachers Association, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the Texas Thespian State Festival. Their work has been seen in London; Bogota; Washington, D.C.; Houston and Denver. 

Alvaro is also an Associate Professor of Playwriting at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he mentors aspiring theatremakers.  He recently created New Dramaworks, a series geared at introducing undergraduates of various disciplines to the process of new play development.

As of 2023, Alvaro is also a proud board member of The Children’s Theatre Foundation of America and a co-founder of The Alebrije Writers Collective.

Click below to find downloadable copies of Alvaro’s resume, CV, bio, and screen res headshot (credit: Joe Mazza/Brave Lux).