María Julia Casanova

María Julia Casanova
Born	1916 Havana, Cuba
Died	2004 (aged 87–88) Miami, Florida
Nationality	Cuban
Occupation(s)	Script writer, theater designer, theater director

María Julia Casanova (1916–2004) is recognized for her long career as a script writer for radio and television and as a theater designer and director.

Biography

María Julia Casanova was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1916. She worked for children's theater in Mexico and wrote for the radio serial La Impostora broadcast on Cuba's CMQ station. With Margot de Blanck she founded the Sala Teatro Hubert de Blanck in Havana, in which she occasionally presented her own plays such as Hechizadas and Mujeres.[1]

Exiled in Miami, Florida, in 1960, Casanova worked in radio and later with Sociedad Pro-Arte Grateli. With Armando Navarro and Roberto Miñagorri, she founded the Sala Teatro La Danza, which debuted with the play Corona de Amor by Alejandro Casona and adapted by Casanova. Casanova also worked for the magazine publisher Editorial de Armas.[1]

In the 1980s, she served as artistic director for the Teatro Bellas Artes in Miami, where she presented original works such as Lucy and La Reina Enamorada, and designed theater sets for Teatro Avante. In the 1990s, she realized her dream of owning a theater and opened the Teatro Casanova on Miami's Calle Ocho. Ediciones Universal published her autobiography, Mi vida en el teatro, in 2000. Four years later, María Julia Casanova died in Miami.[1]

Works or publications

• Guiame a Belén : villancico en forma de habanera para tres y cuatro voces. La Habana, Cuba: Ediciones de Blanck. 1957. OCLC 462144319.
• Mi guitarra guajira guajira. Habana: Ministerio de Educación, Dirección de Cultura, Sección de Bellas Artes. 1948. OCLC 803730120.
• Mi vida en el teatro : el teatro como culto y profesión : autobiografía de una teatrista en Cuba y en el exilio. Miami, FL: Ediciones Universal. 2001. OCLC 46972226.

Notes and references

1. Finding aid authors: Marta Martínez (January 2008); edited by María R. Estorino (2008). "Guide to the María Julia Casanova papers". Prepared for the University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, FL. Retrieved March 31, 2014. This article incorporates text from this source, which has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 and GNU Free Documentation license.

External links

• The María Julia Casanova papers are available at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries. The María Julia Casanova Papers primarily document the work of radio and television writer and theater designer and director María Julia Casanova (1916-2004) in Cuba and Miami. The Papers include her scripts, photographs, clippings, theater programs, set and costume designs, posters, audiovisual materials, memorabilia, and honors and awards.
• Selected set and costume designs from the María Julia Casanova papers are available through the University of Miami Libraries Digital Collections portal.
• Creator page for María Julia Casanova in the Cuban Theater Digital Archive.
• María Julia Casanova at IMDb