Esteban Andres Cruz

Esteban Andres Cruz was born in Berwyn, Illinois and raised in neighboring Cicero. Esteban began his career at age 5 in A Christmas Carol, playing Ignorance or Want. He attended J. Sterling Morton East High School in Cicero, where he performed in numerous musicals and plays. Morton boasted a 2,000 seat theater, known as the Chodl Auditorium. This beaux arts building was built in 1921 and is on the national registry of historic places. It is also where Esteban first cut his teeth in theater. He was exposed to both performance and the technical aspects of the theater, trained in tech guild and was paid as both a technician and a performer. The theatre and it's location allowed it to be a rental house for various traveling companies and shows, including the Polish Lyra Singers and the Lithuanian Opera. Esteban as well as the other students got to perform as supernumeraries, build sets, run sound and fulfill all the aspects and jobs in running a professional theater-as teenagers. Which was great because there was no professional theater in Cicero or Berwyn at the time. The closest theaters were Village Players in Oak Park and Circle Theater in Forrest Park. When his parents separated his Junior year in high school, Esteban was allowed to pursue his life-long dream (albeit formerly forbidden by his father) of dancing. Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theater had a "Chance-to-Dance" program for inner city kids. Though Esteban lived technically in the suburbs, Cicero was much more like the city and neither the suburbs or Chicago really claimed it. Cicero and Berwyn kind of existed on their own. The secretary on the phone told him "I'm sorry, but you aren't allowed to audition." Still, Esteban called every day for several weeks and finally she said, "Fine. Come. Nothing is going to happen." So he arrived on the day of the audition and all the other kids were in tights and fancy warm up gear. Esteban was in basketball shorts and a white tank top. Teachers led a ballet barre and moved students across the floor. Esteban was lost but followed as best he could. Finally the artist director of the then Joseph Holmes and now Deeply Rooted Productions in Chicago; Kevin Iega Jeff gave students a simple combination. It was a burst, a jump into the air with a few steps to rev up towards the punctuation. His arms and legs extended in cardinal directions and he resembled a star to Esteban. So the student knew exactly what to do and what his teacher was trying to be: a star. Esteban said to himself "I got this shit. I can be star." He proceeded to burst across the marlee with all the life and all the reasons. The next week Esteban found out he was accepted to the school and was offered a full scholarship. After 6 months, he moved up into the second company and was dancing professionally by the age of 17. Also that school year, he ended up choreographing for the first time, beginning his professional choreography career. Into his senior year, he wasn't sure what to do with college and performing. A dance teacher, Emily Stein suggested the Barat Conservatory in Lake Forest. He auditioned and was accepted into both the Dance Department as well as the Theatre Department. He was not cast in a ballet the first semester so he auditioned for the fall play and was cast as the lead. The head of the Dance Department was furious and told Esteban that it was inappropriate for him to be acting when he should be focused on his dancing. Esteban replied "Then cast me in a show. Otherwise, I am going to perform. You should be grateful I am doing this and supporting my choice because it will only make my dancing that much better." The play was very well received and Esteban was cast in the ballet the next semester. Paul Taylor's Esplenade, set by Eileen Cropley. Eileen restaged many of Taylor's ballets on the dancers; some of his favorites included: Three Epitaphs, Cloven Kingdom and Esplanade. Eileen was Paul Taylor's partner in his company and she knew all his ballets intimately. And of course, Paul was Martha Graham's partner for years in her company before branching off and forming his own. This makes Esteban a 3rd Generation Graham dancer. After a couple years, Esteban accepted a full ride to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign to further his studies in Dance. He left a neoclassical school where he was taught Cecchetti, Taylor-Graham and Vagonova (Salt Creek Ballet) and began studying post-modernists like Limon and Cunningham. It was very frustrating and difficult for him to grasp release techniques. He did meet Maria Francisca Silva, a Graham dancer from Chile and together they choreographed for one another and hosted several salons to show off their dramatic, muscular and narrative-Graham inspired ballets. Their collaborations lasted the whole 4 years he was there and continues to this day, though he quickly changed majors and in a rather unusual way. Esteban had failed Rhetoric once at Barat. He failed it once at UIUC. After his first semester down state, he decided to change his major to Rhetoric. He was feeling both less than enthused about post-modernism in dance and enticed by the English department and one professor in particular. Jane Juffer wrote At Home With Pornography, was a teacher in both the Latina/o Studies Department and English and taught Feminism 101, Chicana Feminist Lit and to Esteban she taught American Literature. She presented the class as a pursuit of a question, well two: What is American? and What is Literature? It was up to the students to define both in an ugly debate that lasted all term, birthed many papers a stirred these young minds to seek out their own thoughts and opinions. Esteban would say to himself "Wait a minute? I have an opinion in all this? I have ideas and they matter to someone? To a teacher?" It was the first time he had been empowered by his education, outside of dance & theater. He wrote his thoughts and argued with articulate passion to the point that Jane spoke to him after class and said, "You know you're a really great writer. You should change your major to writing." He did. He got an A in Rhetoric. He wrote creative non-fiction and really learned how to argue. He wrote prose poetry and studied Spender, Dostoevsky and Victorian prose. He studied Chicana Feminist Lit and embraced the ideas of Gloria Anzaldua, he even guest lectured a talk she gave at the University. Esteban wound up as Jane's TA for Feminism 101. When school was done in 2001, Esteban joined the Corps de Ballet with the Cincinnati Ballet and Victoria Morgan. The ballet was gorgeous and their soloist, Christophe Maravelle, was a hero of Esteban's. However the town of Cincinnati was a bit too conservative for Mr. Cruz so he left for Chicago by the end of the summer-before the season even began. In Chicago he was a company member with Hedwig Dances for a year, until he re-met Rachel Thorne Germond. They had a brief meeting at U of I. Though he had changed majors, Esteban still danced and did plays at the armory and around Champaign-Urbana. One day he had rehearsal and the Nevada studio was locked. He had gotten there a half hour early so he could do his own warm up. He heard music coming out of one of the four studios and went by the stage door for that studio. "Hey, it's Esteban! Let me in!" Rachel replied "I'm sorry, I don't know you. I'm not letting you in." "Come on, it's Esteban! Everyone knows me." "Well I don't, sorry." After a half hour, Esteban's choreographer let him in and they did a brief warm up. Once he got to talk to Rachel, he was less than polite. Who knew years later, he'd be a soloist and dance with her company for 7 years?! Klein-Mahler technique. Barbara Mahler and Susan Klein. It was the first time Esteban was able to fully embrace a post-modern, release technique. It taught him how to love his own instrument and to speak through it as only this one body can sing. With this new technique, he worked off the years of ballet trauma, including a complete ACL reconstructive surgery in his Left knee. Dancing with Rachel liberated him; he played Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, amoebas, a brother, the devil, a father, a queen, a husband and Freddy Mercury. Esteban taught Rachel's classes when she was out of town. He had found his muse and owes much to this artist, Rachel Thorne Germond and RTG Dance. Seven years were also spent performing the Game Show Show...and Stuff with Esteban's other life long friend/collaborator/muse Anderson Lawfer. The Game Show Show...and Stuff was created as a fund-raising late night divertesment for Strawdog Theatre Company in Chicago. The Huegen Hall was it's home but the show traveled all around the city, has generated many hilarious videos (The Mexichaun, Beesteban & Flower) and gave birth to a number of spin off shows, including Theatre Wars and STUFFED By Esteban. Stuffed was a solo show into which Esteban stuffed all his bits from the GSS&S, which sold out all over the city and opened for Janeane Garofalo at the Lake Shore Theater on Belmont & Broadway. Theater. Theatre. Theater in Chicago. Dance here n there. Dance Theater. Theatre Dance. Jazz. He sang with the big band at U of I. He sang in combos too. Esteban sang in Chicago with a bunch of players from U of I and then a bunch of great Chicago legends. He would get down to the South Side, to the New Apartment Lounge to hear what Von Freeman had to say. When he would sing with Von, the old mentor would push him to take another chorus and scat. Once and a while, especially towards the end, Esteban would improvise a bit for him. Esteban explained to Jodie Christian what a "dragon chord" is and how he hears it in Jodie's music. When he traveled to New York, Esteban would try to see plays and hear his idols before they passed on as well. Shirley Horn was just as much of a poet, even if she only had one leg. Anita O'Day left him sobbing with his head in his arms on his table. She had been so far gone...she couldn't carry a tune, remember lyrics or move her arm from the position it was locked. She had taken a fall years back and though she was off the stuff, she still drank and the fall broke her arm and in unchanging way. Finally sober but partially paralyzed. What made matters worse was the clips they'd show of her from the 50s, the Jazz On a Summer's Day concert where her genius just ripped through that park. Before he had left for NY that year, Esteban also wanted to hear Ron Carter play live. He wrote the Ron Carter website's general email address. It had said on his website he'd b at the Iridium Night Club but the Iridium website said something different. Esteban's email asked if Ron would be playing anywhere during that weekend. When a response came, it was directly from Ron Carter and he asked to let him know when Esteban was in town. Esteban emailed him back right away to let him know, "Mr. Carter. Thank you so much for your response. I am sorry you are not playing. I would be thrilled to get a snack with you, sir. However, I get in at like 9:30pm and after checking in and stuff-would you want to meet for a late night jam somewhere? Check out the after-hours scene?" Ron Carter's response "Esteban, I am a seventy-[something] year old man. After hours for me is between 6pm and 7:30 cause I go to bed around 8pm. Have a fun time and let me know when you're here. Yours, Ron Carter" Jazz. Theater, theater, Dance. Theater Streetcar Named Desire was up in Glencoe, with Writers' Theatre and Esteban's first show with director David Cromer. The second was as Angel in RENT at American Theatre Company. During Streetcar Esteban won the Jeff for Best Actor and joined SAG because of a commercial with Southwest and a movie with Danny Trejo. During RENT he joined Equity and decided to move to Hollywood, eventually. Esteban... In his 5 years in Hollywood He worked in 4 states, 5 cities Shot 4 features 1 of which won Cassevetti Independent Spirit Award bunch o TV...! even Chicago Fire ... from LA! 1 series regular... on a pilot... for CBS... that didn't get picked up. Esteban got to finally perform Cousin Julio in Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis ...in beautiful San Diego Domesticated at Steppenwolf happened while he was in LA. Into The Beautiful North happened and then he stayed. Chicago. The play! The book! The author! The playwright! Ann Filmer! Miguel Nunez! It was the first all Latinx cast Esteban had ever been a part of and between the work of Stephen Adly Guirgis, Philip Dawkins, Karen Zacarias and Luis Alberto Urrea; it all lead him back home; to 16th Street Theater, in Berwyn...where he was born. Esteban refused his return flight to LA, stayed with Ann and became an artistic associate. A 49 seat theater in the basement of a government building in Berwyn, IL, this is where he knew there was magic to be made. Now Esteban is in residence at 16th Street Theater through 2020. You can see him in Koalas this September and another the in the 2019 season. His solo show will premiere in 2020 at 16th Street, a piece about Puerto Rico, Hurricanes and America as part of his series: The History of the US Through The Eyes of a Cross-Eyed, Queer Mexi-Rican. In January, a dream came true through the Theatre Communications Group when Esteban won the Fox Fellowship. He had to fly to New York to workshop and meet his fellow fellows. He turned that 3 days into 10 days of theater! While he was there, he met and had dinner with his hero Stephen Adly Guirgis. Stephen invited Esteban back to work with him and the LAByrinth Theater in the BARN Series: A New Play Festival. Esteban stayed with Stephen and brought research to him. Photos of the lovers on their wedding day. Letters back and forth from jail. He had gotten off the plane with enough time to get his suitcase and high tail it to the gay & lesbian center. They gave him the whole file and encouraged photos and were generous with making photo copies. Esteban left with a full file and before they closed, hopped in a cab and caught two readings at the Cherry Lane Theatre on 7th & Commerce. After the second play about a sexy singing sailor Esteban brought the research to Stephen. They talked about the play and the couple of pages Stephen had, for a reading in two days. The next day Stephen knocked out 26 pages that Esteban read and he reported to Stephen all the themes from his old work that were present in those pages and how his writing has also shifted a bit and grown from having written for television those years. Stephen had more movement and action to his work, bodies moved a lot on stage. Still rooted in a lovely, romantic story of some outcasts. Real people. Real shit. Redemption, Hope, Triumph of the Human Spirit and most of all, true to his theme; Love. Esteban told him "if this is all we have for tomorrow, you don't gotta worry bout a thing. This shit is beautiful, motherfucker! You GOT this play." "Well, I would like to have something for YOU to read tomorrow though." "Oh, No! Don't get it twisted. I want that shit too. What a waste to haul my ass out here." "Nah, I'll have something for you, bro." He did. They got their scripts just a couple hours before go time. So they skipped the next reading to read their own. Esteban got through all 49 pages twice. It was beautiful and Stephen had written the first act of a future classic Guirgis romance. Esteban's scene partner was John Ortiz and the cast included David Zayas, Stephen McKinley Henderson and the original Mary Jane; Elizabeth Canavan. Maestro Guirgis wrote a two person scene, a love scene and it was the last thing offered in the reading. When they brought the lights down on John and Esteban, people were screaming and a few folks rushed the stage and hugged and kissed Esteban with congrats and many pleasantries whispered-whisper/shouted. The boy had found a home in New York, January 28, 2018 at the LAByrinth Theater Company. Then he left for Puerto Rico. Volunteer 65 days: Yabucoa y Humacao Traveled 7 days: Viejo San Juan Santurce, San Juan Cabo Rojo Arecibo Mayaguez Fajardo Boqueron Ponce Lares Las Marias Guayama Maunabo Isabella Now Esteban is writing a play about all the things that have happened. Stay tuned. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Esteban A Cruz