DCMA’s technical theatre director and artist guides students

By Brielle Aguayo •

Jennifer Lopez, counselor at the NSU Center for Student Counseling Services and Well-Being, remembers when her husband, Pablo Antonio Alvarez, who is also known as Tony, technical theatre director and adjunct professor in the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts, gave away the belt he was wearing to a homeless person.

“If you see Tony from the outside, he may seem a little scary, very manly, because his voice is very deep and the way he presents himself. But deep down inside, he’s like a really soft teddy bear,” Lopez said.

Alvarez first stepped into the ceramic workshop at NSU in 2021.

Kandy Lopez, associate professor in DCMA, brought Alvarez to the Don Taft University Center because he was going to teach drawing.

“Then, she took me to the ceramic shop and she told me this is not even being used because we need someone to teach,” Alvarez said. “I was like, ‘I do ceramics and pottery all the time. I would love to do this.’ That’s where everything started for me.”

Alvarez teaches all things that are three-dimensional, such as sculpture, ceramics and pottery. He also builds theater sets and advises students in the scene shop.

Alvarez taught Fidel Perez, senior double major in communication and sociology, in Ceramics I and II. Now, Alvarez is working on a public sculpture to create 64 ceramic pots outside the Mailman-Hollywood Building, alongside Perez and Sofia Dakkuri.

“The idea started through Pablo, and I was just really excited because I’ve never had the opportunity to do art. I never had a lot of access to the art world. So him sharing the opportunity with us, it was a good opportunity to exercise these things that I love doing,” Perez said.

Reagan Singer, junior elementary education major, worked with Alvarez on From Page to Stage in 2024. Singer remembers when Alvarez painted a book on a wall for the production.

“Tony painted the book part of it, and it was beautiful. It was great, and he stayed there until 3 in the morning and did it,” Singer said. “He’s really great with working with us. We’re not children, but young adults. I think that he does it very well.”

Alvarez said making art has empowered him and helped him realize his own potential. Art made him think of himself in a positive light.

“It’s thinking of myself in a really negative way to realizing I could also do beautiful things like [other artists] do. I grew calluses on my fingers when I was 20 or so because I realized I could do this thing, and I would do it all the time. I became obsessed with it,” Alvarez said.

Carey Courson, administrative coordinator for DCMA, helped Alvarez when he first started working at NSU.

“Right away, I was impressed with his kind nature. He just seems to have a great spirit,” Courson said. “He has an eagerness to learn, and he is just a positive person. His energy is just contagious. There’s nothing that he won’t try.”

Before NSU, Alvarez earned a BFA from New World School of the Arts in Miami and an MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

“I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I did pottery and ceramics as a class, and I became obsessed with it. I had never thought of myself as someone that could make something beautiful, and ceramics allowed me to do that,” Alvarez said.

Jennifer Lopez met him while he was finishing his master’s in San Francisco.

“I decided to basically leave San Francisco, because that was my home, and move across the country with him,” Lopez said. “I gave love a chance and moved to Florida.”

Other than Alvarez being passionate about art, he also loves spending quality time with his family. Lopez likes seeing their 5-year-old daughter Emma draw with Alvarez.

“She’s so proud of the things she creates. She goes and she shows her dad like, ‘look what I created,’” Lopez said.

Alvarez said he loves teaching and being able to personally connect with students.

“A lot of people think of teaching as you’re inputting for the student, but it’s really to withdraw from the student. Teaching is really that. It’s bringing out what the student can do,” Alvarez said. “I really love that moment where they have struggled so much and then they achieve this. It’s like this joy I feel, this happiness that I really don’t feel with anything else.”

Bryce Johnson contributed to this report.