Frankie J. Alvarez

Alvarez's parents are originally from Cuba, his father from Havana, and his mother from Artemisa. He is first-generation American and was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Alvarez grew up with the arts in his family: his grandmother was an opera singer in Cuba, while his father played music in a band in Puerto Rico, his mother was a ballerina, and his three sisters all performed in the Miami City Ballet. Spanish was his first language, and he did not learn English until he was 7 or 8 years old, stating that he started learning English from watching baseball. While growing up, he attended an all-boys Jesuit prep school. Alvarez originally enrolled at Florida State University as a Creative Writing major, but applied to the fine arts program after a positive experience in the School of Theatre. He then graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and moved to New York City, and was encouraged by a friend to apply to Juilliard School. He used a bilingual version of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet for his callback and was accepted into the program and received the Raul Julia Memorial Scholarship. He graduated from Juilliard in 2010.