Actor talks theater, beavers

By Chris Quintana | New Mexico Daily Lobo

Meet Law Chavez, a MFA student at the University of New Mexico who was one of the four young minds whose new plays were produced as part of  the Words Afire Directed Readings series. I heard about him this morning from Sarah Summerville of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, and promptly had to learn what I could. Wait until you read this

LC: And my play I have been talking about, Caballos Muertos, it is about the beaver population. Did you know about that?

DL: No, tell me more.

LC: Before New Mexico went into Mexican territory and Americans were allowed in, the beaver population in New Mexico was huge. It actually controlled the watershed of the Rio Grande. Within a matter of years, the American beaver trappers came in. There was a huge demand for beaver fur in Paris and London. The Americans came in and pretty much wiped out the beaver population. Once they did, the Rio Grande just flooded, but it couldn’t control it’s flooding anymore. 

So then the Army Core of Engineers came in and straightened the Rio Grande and put in all those levies. As a result, since the river can’t flood itself at all, the Bosque is dying. So we have all these species dying, a great big fire hazard, and all because they messed with the beavers.

Did anyone else just get chills?

I promptly wrote our friend Catherine Wild of The 7th Generation Institute in New Mexico and said, do you know this guy? She answered that she did not, so that’s a relationship waiting to happen. Gosh, a talented young actor and playwrite who understands about the impact of beaver on the watershed and feels like talking about it all the time? Pinch me!  Boy do we have a story for him.