Sandra Rivera

Sandra Rivera (March 26, 1935 – October 26, 2021) was a Puerto Rican actress, theater, television and film producer, director and writer. For 56 years she was also the artistic director of La Comedia Puertorriqueña, one of the island's leading theater companies founded by her in 1965.

Early life and education
Sandra was born Teodosia Rivera Robles on March 26, 1935 in Fajardo, a town on Puerto Rico's east coast, to Francisco Rivera De Santiago, a grocery wholesaler and Isabel Robles De Santiago, homemaker. She was the fifth of seven children after siblings Flor de María, Santiago, Genoveva and Julio and followed by Olga and Alfredo.

Her love for the arts was evident at an early age. While attending elementary school, Sandra's dreams of becoming an actress were fueled by watching musical comedies at Fajardo's only movie theater and by reading about Eleonora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt, actresses who ran their own theater companies and inspired the young girl to do the same. Although her parents were reluctant to have a future actress in the family, it wasn't a complete surprise to them since Sandra's grandfather was an accomplished singing guitarist and her older cousins were professional dancers as well as formally trained pianists.

At the age of 13, Sandra, her parents and two younger siblings relocated to the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Here, Sandra attended George Washington High School combining her studies with theater training at The Ornato Studios of The Modern Theater. As a teenager, she worked in Spanish language productions staged by companies of the nascent Hispanic theater movement of New York, often performed at the Church of San Sebastian and at the Belmont and Master Institute theaters.

After graduating in 1953, she was accepted at The University of Puerto Rico's prestigious Department of Drama (Universidad de Puerto Rico), modeled after the Yale School of Drama, presently known as the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University. During her studies at the University of Puerto Rico, she performed in plays by Calderón de La Barca, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Molière, Maeterlinck, Lorca, Tennessee Williams, Salacrou, Anouilh and Puerto Rican playwrights. In addition to performing in classical and contemporary works, she studied ballet under Madame Herta Von Brauer.

The 1950s are considered by many to be the Golden Age of the University of Puerto Rico's Teatro Universitario. It trained and created the next generation of the country's theater, television, and film professionals. Sandra shared the stage with remarkable talents such as Braulio Castillo, Samuel Molina, Elín Ortiz, Luis Rafael Sánchez, David Ortiz Angleró, Marcos Betancourt, and three exceptional young actresses that would become her best friends for life: Velda González, Elga Avilés, and Myrna Vázquez.

Still an undergraduate student, she made her television debut in Teleteatro Telemundo's TV adaptation of The House Of Bernarda Alba alongside established leading ladies of the national stage like Mona Marti, Iris Martínez, Marta Romero, Gladys Aguayo and Luz Odilia Font.

In her senior year she directed The Furious Sphinx by Spanish dramatist Juan Germán Schroeder, also taking over the role of Ana at the last minute when the leading actress fell ill. Upon completion of her B.A degree, she was awarded The University Of Puerto Rico's Presidential Scholarship to continue graduate studies abroad. Sandra submitted an application to the Accademia Nazionale D'Arte Drammatica Silvio d'Amicco in Rome because of her interest in Italian neorealism style. She also applied to The Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts as her second choice, choosing to study at the California school in the end "because they replied first".

Sandra entered the Pasadena Playhouse in the fall of 1956. At the renowned school venue, she trained and performed alongside fellow students Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Henry Darrow. In 1958 Sandra received a master's degree in theater arts, also studying film and television production. She returned to Puerto Rico in 1961, where she continued to work in theater and television shows and soap operas.

In 1965, together with Carlos Marichal and Rafael Acevedo, she founded her own theater company, La Comedia Puertorriqueña inspired by La Comedie Française, the oldest active theatre company in the world. For this new enterprise she produced and later starred in a significant number of world theater plays. The company's first season opened with Five Finger Exercise by Peter Shaffer followed by Champagne Complex by Leslie Stevens and later on, Federico García Lorca's Yerma, with her in the leading role.

From 1966 onwards, she was invited by the Performing Arts Division of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture as a producer for its yearly International theater festivals. Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Faulkner's Requiem For A Nun, Terence Rattigan's The Prince and The Chorus Girl and Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie were some of her highly acclaimed productions which also garnered rave reviews for her performances.

In the early 70's she anchored Women In The News, her own segment on the WKBM-TV morning news show as well as Sandra y su Matinée during which she presented movies and interviewed leading personalities in the world of politics, art, music, fashion and culture.

New York once more
Searching for new career opportunities, Sandra established herself in New York for a second stint from 1974 to 1982. While in the Big Apple, she taught at Fordham University and The City University of NY. She worked as a television producer for the show Infinity Factory on PBS and as a documentary producer for Rede Globo International TV. As an actress, she produced and played Juana in Dead Season staged at the Museum Of Natural History Auditorium (now LeFrak Theater). She later worked with the Hudson Theater and Latin American Theater Ensemble. She starred in the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater bilingual productions of The Oxcart and the world premiere of René Marqués play Death Shall Not Enter The Palace, which marked the opening of PRTT's new theater on Broadway.

Back home
In 1981, she was offered a co-leading role in one Telemundo's prime time soaps, which prompted her move back to the island and her return to work in national television and the Puerto Rican stage.

From this period onwards, Sandra worked practically non-stop, delivering excellent performances in a variety of roles, best among them as M'Lynn Eatenton in Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias, Queen Joanna The Mad Of Castile in The Madness of Love, and as Genoveva, a grandmother in her late eighties in Trees Die Standing by Alejandro Casona. For her riveting performance in the latter she was awarded the 1984 Alejandro Tapia y Rivera award for best actress, Puerto Rican theatre's most prestigious honor.

The new century
Two of Sandra's proudest achievements as actress and producer was her theater company's Puerto Rican staging of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. Starring eight of Puerto Rico's grand dames of the stage, it broke attendance records as the play ran for ten consecutive weeks in San Juan. It then toured the island for an entire year, finally closing back in the capital in December 2002.

The other one was the 2010 Spanish language world premiere of José Rivera's Boleros For The Disenchanted, at the Francisco Arriví Theater with the author in attendance.

That same year the country's International Theatre Festival was dedicated in her honor, recognizing her more than 50-year career on the stage.

In her later years, the actress added film production to her résumé, helming the movies La fuga (2010), Huey, Dewey, Louie And Three Girls In Pink (2013) and the TV movie adaptation of the play Actresses (2011).

She retired from the stage in 2013 after her last performance in the role of Gingy, in Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss, and What I Wore at the San Juan Performing Arts Center (Centro de Bellas Artes).

In 2015 she suffered a debilitating stroke which left her paralized on one side and affected her speech. Nonetheless, she continued overseeing all aspects of her beloved theatre company as artistic director until her death in 2021. She was mourned as one of Puerto Rico's national treasures.

Personal life
Sandra married Carlos Rodríguez Orama in Fort Ord, California on December 23, 1956. They were divorced on June 21, 1968. The couple had three children, Edmundo Héctor, (Film Director) Gilberto Adrián (Writer) and Sandra Teres (Actress and Producer).

In 1975 she married theater producer Xavier Cifré Tormos in New York City. After 22 years the marriage ended in divorce.