Alva Rogers, a dramatist, vocalist, puppeteer, and founder of Alva Puppet Theater, creates theatrical work that fearlessly addresses the often hidden, unacknowledged emotional and physical labor of people of color, particularly women. Her dramas transcend the mimetic recognizable stage by employing elements of magic realism and surrealism to shroud those invisible threads while obscuring the emotional labor involved in mining and distilling African American and American history. Rogers' imagination continues to explore the intersection of actor, object, and material performance, providing a perspective on both the world we inhabit and the one we aspire to create.

Rogers’ work has been presented on stages including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Joseph Papp Public Theater, Here Arts Center, Dixon Place, Seattle Repertory Theater, Actor’s Express Theater, The O’ Neill Puppetry Conference and others; exhibited in selected museums and festivals including the Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum, Walker Art Center, The New Museum and the Spoleto Festival, USA.  She is the recipient of a 2024 Jim Henson Foundation Production grant and Patch Residency and a Jim Henson Foundation Workshop grant in 2023. and has received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, The Jim Henson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer; fellowships in performance and playwriting from The New York Foundation for the Arts and a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award.

Alva Rogers’ Papers are archived in the New York University Fales Special Collections Library Downtown Art Collection.