Héctor Quintero Viera

Actor, Director, Playwright and Narrator, he began his artistic work from childhood in radio, television and, later, theater. He pursued studies in accounting that he alternated with Scenic Acting studies at the School of Commerce and Municipal School of Dramatic Arts respectively. Subsequently, he earned a degree in Hispanic Languages and Literature from the University of La Habana.

As an Actor, he has been a member of the theatrical groups Milanés, Conjunto Dramático Nacional, Teatro Estudio, Teatro Musical de La Habana.

Between 1962 and 1969 he worked as a scriptwriter for radio and television programs in the capacity of adapter or versionist of novels, short stories and theatrical pieces from universal literature.

In his multifaceted work, Quintero has composed the music for all his shows, has worked as a narrator for film, television, video in more than one hundred documentaries or feature films. He has worked in the print press as a theater critic.

He has worked as a musical comedian (he played Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady in 1980) and produced shows of poems and songs such as Con cierto tipo (1992). He has also developed extensive work as a narrator of symphonic works (Peter and the Wolf, by Prokofiev; Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, by Britten; and many others backed by the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba). He has occupied spaces on Cuban television as an interpreter of Hispanic American poetry.

As a writer:
1962: He writes his first long play for the theater: Contigo Pan y cebolla. In 1963 this play receives an Honorable Mention in the Casa de las Américas Prize. In 1964 it is premiered by the Teatro Estudio Group. From then on this play has remained permanently on national billboards and has been premiered in numerous countries in the Americas, including the United States, in bilingual version, under the title of Rice and Beans.
1964: He writes El premio flaco and obtains an Honorable Mention in the Casa Prize, Prize from the Cuban Center of the ITI (International Institute of Theatre), First Prize from ILAT (ITI Branch for Latin America), First Prize from ITI (Paris 1968). Because of this, the play is translated and distributed worldwide, with more than a dozen translations and has been published and performed in dozens of countries in the Americas and Europe, even in versions that include Musical Theater (Teatro Massoviet in Moscow) and Plovdiv Opera, Bulgaria.
1968: He writes, directs and premieres the musical comedy Los siete pecados capitales for the Teatro Musical de La Habana, with which he begins his career as a Stage Director.
1969: He creates a personal version of six of the tales from the Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, for the Teatro Estudio group.
1970: He writes and directs Mambrú se fue a la guerra. 1972: He writes and directs Si llueve te mojas como los demás.
1974: Versions and direction of several Russian tales in Paisaje Blanco.
1976: He writes and directs Algo muy serio.
1978: He writes and directs La última carta de la baraja.
1980: He writes and directs Esto no tiene nombre.
1990: He writes and directs Estoy aquí.
1990: He writes and directs Aquello está buenísimo. (Monologue)
1990: He writes and directs Sábado Corto.
1996: He writes and directs Te sigo esperando.
1998: He writes and directs El lugar ideal.

He created and directed, for twelve years, the Teatro Musical de La Habana. He served for three years as vice president of the Association of Scenic Artists of UNEAC. He has participated in all congresses. Currently he is a member of its National Council.

For two years he directed all theatrical and dance activity in the province from the Center of Theater and Dance of La Habana.

During these past five years he devoted himself almost entirely to a television project that he wrote and directed: El año que viene, with 131 chapters that was broadcast on Cuban television.

Currently he presides over the Cuban Center of the ITI.

In 1981 he received the Distinction for National Culture, Council of State.

In 1995 he received the Alejo Carpentier Medal, Council of State.

In 1996 he received the Omar Valdés Prize for his outstanding merits and contributions to the development of Cuban art and literature.

He also holds, as Distinctions, the Replica of Máximo Gómez's Machete granted by the Minfar, as well as the medal MY LIFE IN THE THEATER, awarded by the ITI of México to honor figures in Mexican and Latin American theater.

Participation in international events:
Delegate to Congresses of the International Institute of Theatre (ITI) in:
1969 Budapest
1978 Sofia
1981 Madrid
1983 Berlin
1985 Montreal and Toronto

Participant in festivals and theoretical events in:
1969 Romania
1978 Holland
1979 France
1981 USSR
1982 Czechoslovakia
1983 GDR
1984 Spain
1986 Finland
1987 GDR

He has made six trips to the USA where he premiered El lugar ideal, and a show with fragments from several of his works at the Gala Theater in Washington DC.

According to Rine Leal, a prestigious Cuban theater critic and researcher (deceased), speaking of Héctor Quintero, said: ...he is the most popular of Cuban playwrights.

His works —according to the opinion of another prominent Cuban critic, Rosa Ileana Boudet— have had great acceptance in addressing current themes and conflicts of everyday life with a transcendent perspective and vision.

In the year 2000 he recorded for the EGREM label a CD with Cuban and Hispanic American poems and songs under the title Toma esta flor in which his version of the Padrenuestro Latinoamericano, by Mario Benedetti, appears.

Since 1998 he has presented his shows under the banner of the Cía. Teatral de Héctor Quintero. Since 1999 he has also served as artistic director of the Dos Gardenias Tourist-Cultural Complex.

Héctor Quintero together with Hilda Oates was selected as National Prize for Theater in the year 2004.

His last premiere in La Habana was still in the billboards on the day of his death. It is Monseñor Bola