Herminia María Sánchez Quintana

Actress and writer who was a member of the National Theater, the National Dramatic Ensemble and Teatro Estudio.

Herminia was living memory of Cuban theater. The distinguished Cuban actress, playwright and pedagogue, National Theater Prize 2019 leaves as a legacy an extensive creative career, which extended to film and television.

"My father from Andalusia had traveled to Cuba, where he met my mother (from Cárdenas). They married and, due to my mother's illness, the marriage was forced to return to Spain, where I was born. They brought me to Cuba when I was three years old because my father was obsessed with this country. He was one of the best danzón dancers that Havana had," she said in statements collected two years ago by the Cuban television website.

Full professor of the Acting program at the Superior Institute of Art until 1989. She obtained numerous awards and recognitions from cultural institutions due to the high quality of her literary works and enjoyed the acceptance of readers from all over the world to whom her books are directed. She was a member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and received the Caricato Prize for her entire body of work in 2017.

She was born in 1923 in Barcelona, Spain. She resided mostly in the City of Havana from her arrival in Cuba in 1930 until her death.

She studied at the Professional School of Commerce in Havana, where she graduated as an Accountant and Customs Expert in 1948. She also studied English.

She is a graduate of the Seminar of Dramatic Arts at the University of Havana from the 1950s.

She worked as Executive Secretary and accountant at the González Porto Publishing House (1946-52), as well as at the tourist shop "El Patio" (1955-59).

After the triumph of the Revolution, she was an actress with the National Theater, the National Dramatic Ensemble and the Escambray Theater Group, of which she was a founder and for whose repertoire she wrote in 1968 her first work, "Escambray mambí".

Regarding her 1951 performance in Sophocles' Electra, Mario Rodríguez Alemán expressed: "…her figure gave Electra an emotional clarity that we will not forget for a long time". Upon seeing her stellar performance in The House of Bernarda Alba (1953), he said: "The center of Bernarda interpreted by Herminia is an exemplary embodiment of tragedy and the fulfillment of the art of dramatic conception".

An impactful memory of the founding beginnings of Escambray Theater (1968) is her first written work: Escambray mambí. Herminia described this moment as one of the most important events of her theater: "Once we were certain that for the people of Escambray the passage and military camp of General Máximo Gómez on their lands was strange, we turned to two sources: General Gómez's diary and the stories of Manuel de la Cruz and we created the work suited for that mountainous space".

She premiered Cacha Basilia de Cabarnao, 1971, Amante y penol, 1972, Audiencia en La Jacoba, 1973, Un hombre del Partido, 1974, and Se hizo en seis, 1974.

In the seventies, Herminia Sánchez stands out for her work alongside Manolo Terraza, her husband, with the Popular Participation Theater group that they developed to stimulate theatrical creation in the community and port spheres. In that era, the Havana docks and the neighborhoods of Belén witnessed the work that showcased the rich tradition of Havana and its intrinsic popular manifestations, always based on sociological and historical research.

Rosa Ileana Boudet in 1975 said of her presentation: "At Loma del Ángel, she has found the efficient communication of the people. She has converted what in the past was an elitist and minority activity into a unique spectacle. If we call that new theater, it is welcome".

In the eighties the actress alternated her work in film, television and theater. She returned to Teatro Estudio, maintained her work with Popular Participation Theater and was Full Professor of the Acting program at the Superior Institute of Art. From her work in Cuban cinema, her performances in Lucia, Hello Hemingway and Habana Eva are memorable. She published among other texts Teatro, De pie and Monólogos Teatrales cubanos.

Between 1970 and 1972, she was a professor of Theatrical Appreciation at the Lenin Special School, as well as an Instructor of Scenic Training in the Popular Participation Theater Group, from which she became director and with which she premiered the pieces Me alegro in 1975. From her play Amante y penol, a version was made for television. On the other hand, Audiencia en La Jacoba has been translated into German.

She performed sporadically in dramatic spaces on television and in Cuban films.

As a representative, delegate or theatrical actress, she traveled to numerous events in the GDR, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Bulgaria, Nicaragua, Barbados, and Spain. At some of these events, she gave lectures specifically about Popular Participation Theater Groups.

As a leader of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), she signed agreements with theater unions in Russia, the GDR and Poland.

She maintained extensive participation as a jury member in numerous competitions and events, including the Casa de las Américas, the panoramas and festivals of Cuban theater, the David competition, festivals of amateur performers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and the Ministry of the Interior (MININT).

She was a full professor of acting at the Superior Institute of Art (ISA) from 1980, as well as a member of the Literature and Performing Arts Sections of UNEAC, an institution in which she served as executive of the aforementioned Performing Arts Section and as a member of its National Council. She was also an actress with the Teatro Estudio Group from 1980.

Theater was her realm par excellence. There she starred in works that included great titles from the universal repertoire, including classics of the Greco-Latin tradition, to creations by Cuban authors.

She shared the stage with greats: Rosita Fornés, Asenneh Rodríguez, Adolfo Llauradó, Raquel Revuelta, Abelardo Estorino.

Her work was notable in the National Dramatic Ensemble and Teatro Estudio.

In cinema, her performances in Lucía, Hello Hemingway and Habana-Eva were significant.

Away from the stage in recent years, she always maintained a dialogue with new generations, who always recognized her as a beloved teacher.

She received in 2019 the National Theater Prize, and on the stage of the Hubert de Blanck Theater, she publicly thanked her fellow performers, her students and the public for the way all the years of work in theater, television and cinema were rewarded to her. "I committed myself to being an actress, I don't know if I have achieved it, but I have always pursued it". It was a sentence she pronounced that day amid laughter and tears of emotion.

Awards and Distinctions

She was granted several recognitions:

Alejo Carpentier Order.
Distinction for National Culture.
Raúl Gómez García Medal.
Diploma as founder of the Escambray Theater Group.
UNEAC Prize in acting, 1985.
Caricato Prize for her entire body of work, 2017.
National Theater Prize, 2019.
ACTUAR Prize for Lifetime Achievement 2019.

She became an Adopted Daughter of Old Havana and Distinguished Immigrant of the Society of Spanish Residents, two distinctions that speak volumes about the reach of her work.

In November 2022, just days before her death, the ACTUAR Agency awarded her the Marta Jiménez Oropesa Distinction for her artistic merits and commented on social media that the emblematic actress "received it at her residence in Havana, thanked to deserve such high recognition and spoke words of praise".

According to Cuban filmmaker Fernando Pérez, cited by Prensa Latina (PL) agency, Sánchez constitutes a jewel of Cuban culture for her contributions to popular theater and for the way she managed to bring it to life by showing authenticity, organicity and passion.