Student Abel Marquez said he always wanted to be an actor, writer or producer.
Marquez is planning on tying in his two majors, mathematics and theater, to his goal of making a theatre company in the future.
In his junior year at Nogales High School in La Puente, Marquez got into theatre after the death of his brother.
Marquez said his brother taught him about theater and he has been in love with it ever since.
“I think Citrus College really has something special here,” Marquez said.
Marquez started out at Citrus as a theater major but fell in love with math from a professor who showed him the beauty in it.
Marquez was a tutor at the Stem Center for his first three years at Citrus, tutoring MATH 029 through MATH 150 and has taken up to Calculus 2 himself.
Marquez has a busy schedule balancing his majors and working with the theater department.
“He has the perfect directorial balance of creativity and efficiency, and I’m positive he has a strong career ahead of him,” Julia Hennessy, theater major said. “I’m excited to see what opportunities are waiting for him next, and will be rooting for him all the way.”
Attending Citrus since spring 2015, Marquez has worked on many shows off and on the stage. Including, “Twelfth Night: A Galactic Farce,”“Father of the Bride,” “Citrus Theatre Works,” and writing for “Emerging American Voices,” a workshop presentation of showcases by Citrus College students.
“I have worked with Abel on multiple productions, and show after show he completely blows me away with what he can achieve,” Hennessy said. “He always handles the massive amount of responsibility thrown at him with absolute professionalism and enthusiasm. Not only does he accomplish more in a day than most people could in a week, he does this while maintaining wonderful working relationships with everyone around him.”
Jeremy Lewis, Marquez’s directing professor, teaches all over including Citrus College, Cal State Fullerton, Azusa Pacific University and Concordia University Irvine. Lewis has had Marquez as a student in his directing class three times.
“Abel is the one directing student that I feel at this point, he is showing signs of the potential to really have a successful career as a professional director,” Lewis said.
Marquez then stopped tutoring and started working somewhere else because he says he needed more money to supplement his education.
He then participated in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival regional competition for region 8 in Mesa, Arizona. There he had a couple weeks to direct a scene, create a prompt book, present the scene and be interviewed about it. He later then had to present the scene again with a couple hours to re-do it by taking KCACTF’s notes and applying it to his scene.
“I ended up winning there, so that was really cool,” Marquez said.
After Marquez’s win in February, he was then invited to Washington D.C. on April 9 and returned April 14 for the national competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
There, Marquez participated in master classes, went to professional productions and got the chance to speak to professionals in the industry. Marquez said he met a lot of great people there, both as peers and mentors he looks up to.
Meanwhile, during his visit in D.C. he interviewed with Alejandro Rodriguez at Artists Striving To End Poverty, a company that focuses on bringing arts to lower income communities.
“The one thing I realized when I went to both ACTF (KCACTF) in Arizona and ACTF (KCACTF) in D.C. is that, you know, that a lot of universities have great theater departments, you know, they have a lot of resources and we don’t really have that here, but that doesn’t stop us and I feel like above all what we can get from this department is experience and that’s a lot of things people don’t have out there,” Marquez said.
Marquez ended up getting a half scholarship for his trip from ASTEP to go to the Artist as Citizen Conference in New York this summer at The Juilliard School. The Artist as Citizen Conference is focused on entrepreneurship for artists.
His goal has always been to make a theatre company. “Theaters need to start growing in the community,” and that is how he ties in his mathematics, because tutoring is about helping out the community.
“He is extremely talented. He has a great eye for the stage,” Lewis said. “In a way, I’m able to utilize him as a co-teacher. There’s times where I have him teach lessons in my class.” For example, “If I’m working with a set of actors I can have him take another set of actors because I trust him.”
“With theater and math, people have to fail before they begin to succeed and it is important to understand that and to bring that to communities and to realize like, Hey. This is a place where you can grow and learn, is important, and that is what I want to bring with a theater company,” Marquez said.
Marquez was assistant director for “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” a show that recently ended it’s run at the Citrus College Little Theater.
“He, as an assistant director, really does a nice job of fulfilling my vision as a director and what I’m looking for,” Lewis said.
This summer Marquez plans to go back to Washington, D.C. and will be an assistant director to a working professional at the Kennedy Center for the Directing Intensive on Developing a New Play. He will also be going to New York for the Artists as Citizen Conference at The Juilliard School to network and collaborate with artists from around the country.
