CÉSAR ALVAREZ is a composer, lyricist, playwright, and performance maker. They create large experimental musicals as non-normative possibility spaces for embodiment, inter-dimensionality, socio-political transformation, kinship and coexistence. With a background as a jazz saxophonist, band leader and sound artist, César's work inhabits a space between the worlds of theater, music, performance art and social practice. César was a 2018-20 Princeton Arts Fellow, a recipient of The Jonathan Larson Award, The Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre for lyrics and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2022.

César is an Assistant Professor of Music at Dartmouth College.

B.Mus. Oberlin Conservatory
MFA Bard College

Pronouns: they/them/theirs

César also composed the music for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon (Soho Rep, TFANA. Drama Desk Nomination), The Foundry Theater's Good Person of Szechwan (LaMaMa, The Public Theater. Drama Desk Nomination) and released four albums with The Lisps. In 2015 César co-founded Polyphone, a festival of new and emerging musicals at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. They served as Artistic Director for five seasons.

César has developed work in residencies and workshops with Soho Rep, Ars Nova, New York Theater Workshop, New York Stage and Film, The Perelman Performing Arts Center, The Public Theater, The Civilians, A.R.T., MassMoCA, HERE, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, Ensemble Studio Theater, Playwrights Horizons Theatre School/NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, The University of the Arts, Princeton University, Adelphi University, PRELUDE, Joe’s Pub, Ucross/Sundance, SPACE at Ryder Farm, and The Vineyard Arts Project.