A Salinas kid fell in love with performing arts in local playhouses. Now he’s back on stage.

Michael Alvarez knows the “exact moment” he fell in love with theater. He was about 4, watching the Wizard of Oz for what seemed to be the 100th time, and his grandma and mom were in the kitchen.” He walked over and told them, “That’s what I’m going to do when I grow up.”

At that age, he didn’t really know what “that” was. But the now-37-year-old has since done everything from acting in productions at local playhouses like ARIEL Theatrical and Western Stage to behind-the-scenes work as a director, producer and educator as well as developing operas, plays and film for the Royal Academy of Music, the New York Theatre workshop and other institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

When Covid hit, Alvarez found himself back in Salinas and ready to rejoin his old stomping grounds: the Western Stage. Currently, he’s a program coordinator helping reimagine the theater’s 15-year-old 2x4 BASH as a training program for aspiring actors, producers, writers and directors. This vision is to equip them with skills that helped theater kids like himself make a career out of the performing arts.

Weekly: Are there productions that you’ve done that were inspired by another classic or well-known play? Like did you ever do Spring Awakening and think, “I want to retell the coming-of-age story?”

Alvarez: In 2020, we did a retelling of Medea called Love, Medea. The playwright, Peter Gray, wrote [ the rendition of Medea] for an Eastern European actress, Joana Knezevic. She grew up in Belgrade, Serbia and people would tell her to be warmer or smile more, or call her a barbarian. [In the myth, Medea helps Jason find the Golden Fleece and they get married. After he leaves Medea and marries another woman, she kills their children.]

In the original mythology, she’s meant to represent this ritual surrounding rebirth and womanhood. But then comes [playwright] Euripides, and basically he writes her off. Then you have Greek heroes and people like Hercules – he kills his wife and kids while being driven crazy. All these Greek “heroes” who are only heroes because they have a penis.

Right?! Hercules was one of the original “crazy ex-girlfriend” stories.

Exactly. In Love, Medea, we played off of Medea’s multi-faceted character. The production had dance. It had music. It had installation art. We ended on a cooking show. It was like a Julia Child cooking show – where her father was the sous chef and all the children were lobsters. It’s meant to show she wasn’t just responsible for killing her kids. Everyone took part in it. Her father, Jason, everyone.

Should we still teach the classics?

There’s this whole movement around dropping the classics. But they’re classics for a reason. They supersede gender, race, current politics and get at what it means to be human. I think classics speak to our part of shared human experience.

I’m interested in the bridges that connect us and how those flaws in our shared experiences manifest in these terrible-isms.

What does community theater mean to you?

I don’t think you can ask that question without asking, who is engaging with theater now? Zelda Fitzhandler was an amazing woman who had this idea to decentralize theater outside of New York. She pushed for regional theater in order to make space for theater that spoke to different communities.

We have this [idea that] theater is for rich white people. I mean, the prices are absurd. So who is that supposed to speak to? When you’re charging $200 per ticket, you’re catering to a specific audience.

The big word through this pandemic is accessibility. If [a production] is virtual, more people are able to watch, usually for free or for pennies. It’s imperfect, but going forward we have to keep talking about accessibility.

What’s it like to be part of a woman-led theater, under Interim Artistic Director Melissa Chin-Parker?

[Theater] has been a boys’ club for too long. Melissa has been there for 34 years. She knows the company. She knows the community. To be part of that is amazing. I think creating strong work isn’t enough for a community theater, and Melissa gets that.

To attend a 2x4 BASH information session, email Michael Alvarez at malvarez@hartnell.edu