Juan Cejas: Cuba's rising comet of the Florida stage - director de teatro - TA: theater director

Hispanic Times Magazine, March-April, 1998 by Robert Kendall

Juan Cejas was among the large migration of Cubans seeking a new life in America who traveled with his parents to Miami during the prolific period from the early Sixties to the early Seventies. Born in Havana in 1964, Juan came to South Florida just before his sixth birthday and has been a part of the community known for its thriving Cuban influence ever since.

While Juan would eventually decide that the theater would be his life's work, like so many young Cubans, baseball became an early passion and his initial career goal was to become a major league diamond performer. During his baseball days he played alongside fellow Cuban Rafael Palmeiro and John Candelosi, future Major Leaguers.

"I had always wanted to become a professional baseball player and played both pitcher and shortstop," Juan explained the other day during a break from his busy duties as Artistic Director of the Florida Shakespeare Theater in Coral Gables. "My chances to become a professional were dashed by an arm injury when I was 16. When I realized that my dream of becoming a baseball player would never happen I was crushed. The first thing I did was drop out of high school."

From Psychology to the Theater

Juan quickly realized his mistake in dropping out of school. One year later he reentered high school and before long he was a student at Miami Dade Community College majoring in Psychology and Business. Through a purely fortuitous leap Cejas soon found himself propelled into the exciting new world of theater.

"I had fulfilled all my credits in Psychology so my professor suggested that I take a theater course," Cejas explained. "Theater was the last thing I was interested in before that, but before I knew it I was fascinated by theater and was both acting and directing in productions at Miami Dade. At one early point I became so absorbed in theater that I read three hundred plays. I was determined to learn as much as I could as fast as I could."

If there is one word that describes the slender Cuban's demeanor it is "intensity." A man with a passion for creativity and directing plays, he gesticulates in the manner of an intensely dedicated actor when discussing the subject that fascinates him, live theater. His early directorial influences, however, came from the film area.

"I liked Sidney Lumet and I was very impressed by the naturalness displayed in the films of John Cassavettes," Cejas revealed. I also studied the films of Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola with great interest."

Linking up to Shakespeare

Juan became an active presence on the Miami area theater scene. A contact extending to his earlier efforts was Ellen Beck, a prominent local stage actress with a vision. She enlisted Cejas to share it with her, the result being the opening of the Shakespeare Theater in Coral Gables.

"I had known Ellen for a long time, and she kept telling me that she wanted me to be her Artistic Director," Juan explained. "She wanted me to design the theater for her and I did."

Ellen Beck was shrewd enough to recognize opportunity when it knocked. Juan was shrewd enough to seize it alongside her as Ellen assumed the position of Executive Director of the new Shakespeare Theater with Juan functioning as Artistic Director. The Shakespeare Theater resulted from an opportunity Beck seized to launch a theater within the complex of the historic Biltmore Hotel, a magnificent structure dating back to the Twenties situated in one of the most affluent areas of Coral Gables, an upscale suburb just south of downtown Miami, in which the University of Miami is located. When an enterprising Ellen Beck observed the venue for the first time, she enthused, "I envisioned something like the Cottesloe Theater in London."

Launching its Second Year

The dreams of Juan Cejas and Ellen Beck became reality with the opening of the Shakespeare Theater in the Fall of 1996. It is now launching its second year after an eventful premiere showing of Opening Up Cuba by Benji Aaronson, starring prominent screen and stage character actor Burt Young and directed by Broadway notable Bill Hart.

Two stellar works from the successful first season were directed by Juan Cejas, The Food Chain, by prominent New York playwright Nick Silver, and the riveting Fall selection at the Shakespeare, Lanford Wilson's Burn This. The success ingredient Cejas cites is teamwork.

"You know, so many of the people I work with are people I have known and worked with for years in Miami theaters," Cejas revealed. "Along with Ellen Beck, whom I have known for a long time, I have known and worked with so many of the actors over a long period. There is even one actor from my early days who is now living in Chicago and I manage to bring him back into the area for about one show a year."

Juan Cejas serves as a glittering example of the impact dynamic young Cubans are making on the current Miami scene.