I began my acting career, like many, doing small parts in High School plays. It was in my junior year that I was cast as Creon in Antigone which would be performed in-the-round. It was my first time leading a play and it unearthed an innate a sense of responsibility, and the intimate atmosphere tapped me into a passion that I was unaware lied dormant. I realized that I’d spent my life living as an actor in preparation, and that there’d be nothing else I could pursue.

As a kid, I’d spend my year between school in the burbs of Philly, and my summers on the Bolivian frontier. My father, who immigrated to the U.S., owned a cattle ranching business deep in the Amazonian jungle. Being there was like going back in time 30 years. No electricity, no running water for weeks… oof, let me tell you. But from finding kinship with the dangers of the jungle, to having tree frogs hop into your craw in the outhouse, I’d experience so much as a child that was so vastly different from my peers, that it felt like part of my life was a dream. What I got was a wide-lens of the natural world, and unbeknownst to me, an inimitable acquaintance with life that would become my context as an actor. I’d go on to study in various conservatories and schools of different ideology, but all the while drawing from my infatuation with life as my deepest source.

These projects, and the people I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with, have all changed my life forever. I’m so proud of all of them. My hope is that if there is anything you might take away from my work is that its honest, deliberately human, and at the very least, entertaining. I believe in the power of storytelling, perhaps, more than I believe in anything else.

Thanks for hanging, and I hope you enjoy some of my work.

Michael Alexander Monasterio