Recent graduate Nelly Torres loved studying theater at Millersville University. But where, she wondered, were the playwrights from her own Latino background?

"I had learned a lot about Brecht, about August Wilson, but none about my own culture," she says.

Then a professor gave her an article about Luis Alfaro, a critically acclaimed writer/performer who works in poetry, short stories and plays, who won a MacArthur Genius Grant.

He also gave her a dramatic piece of Alfaro's he thought would be good for auditions.

"I was in awe," says Torres. "It was really refreshing to see Spanish people representing their voices and their communities."

Torres has never been one to sit back and dream. She acts.

(Among her many accomplishments, she received the Laurie Flick Youth Humanitarian Award from the Lancaster County Human Relations Commission when she was 17.)

Torres headed over to Theater of the Seventh Sister, where she had interned, and asked them if they wanted to do one of Alfaro's plays, "Electricidad."

"They had already selected other shows for their mainstage season, but they told me I could do it as part of their Artistic Village, which was perfect," she says.

The production opens Thursday at the Stahr Performing Arts Center, with Torres directing.

"What impressed me about the play is that it's looking at how we live, how we talk, converse with one another. I know these characters. They could be my neighbors. That was really exciting for me," she says.

But Torres notes that like all great plays, "Electricidad" transcends its culture to become about universal human issues.

Alfaro went back 2,500 years, to a playwright who practically defined the idea of plays about universal human issues: Sophocles.

"Electricidad" is based on his "Electra," about children who must come to terms with the death of their father at the hands of their mother.

In "Electricidad," three children (Ifigenia, Orestes and Electricidad) must comes to terms with the fact that their mother, Clemencia, killed their gang-leader father, Agamemnon (Auggie).

She claims that her husband beat her and she was tired of the cycles of violence.

But Electricidad demands revenge as she sits guarding her beloved father's body.

Her neighbors (serving as the Greek chorus) comment on what's happening and warn about the dangers of gang violence and revenge. They also serve to lighten the drama with some comedy.

"A lot of heavy things are happening," Torres says. "It's all about choices. We can't chose our family or our upbringing, but we have a choice about what kind of a person we will become."

The play is largely performed in English, but there is also Spanish, or Spanglish, Torres notes with a laugh.

Torres got her first experience in theater when she was a student at McCaskey and she wrote a play for the McCaskey Gospel Choir.

"It was an adaptation of 'It's a Wonderful Life' set to urban issues -- poverty, violence. I called it 'It Really Is a Wonderful Life.'"

This is her first directing job.

"The biggest challenge is being a leader, making solid decisions and sticking by them," she says. "You can go in so many directions, have so many opinions, but you have to have a strong sense of who you are and communicate that to the cast."

But she wants the process to be collaborative.

"I want to experience the whole thing with my actors," she says. "They will have to have a strong sense of who they are on stage. I can't give that to them. I want it to be organic, come from a solid source within themselves."

Torres hopes "Electricidad" opens theater up to members of the Latino community in Lancaster.

"When I was growing up, I had no idea of the world of theater," she says. "What I want to do is have kids, and people of all ages, say 'I can make a difference, have a voice.' I feel like (Lancaster) is a big enough place to have a platform for everyone. Even in the schools, I'd like to see more education on Spanish literature and playwrights."

"Electricidad"

Opens Thurs. at 7:30 p.m.

Cont. through March 14

Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2:30 p.m.

$15 adults, $10 students

Stahr Performing Arts Center

438 N. Queen St., 396-7764
www.seventhsister.com