Actor And Cultural Manager Ángel Mejía Dies At 66

Angel Mejía, a prominent actor, educator, and graphic designer, died this Saturday after undergoing gallbladder surgery that later complicated his health with two other operations. He was 66 years old.

The playwright Basilio Nova, confirming the information, said that “it is a hard setback, a hard blow for me and for the entire cultural sector, we met from a very young age in Villa Juana, he saw one of our work and started a theater group from there and until concluding with a cultural center like Narciso González “.

Mejía was born in Sabana Grande de Boyá on the 1st. March 1955 and died this Saturday at the Metropolitan Center for Medical Specialties located in Los Alcarrizos.

From 1991 to 1997 he directed the National School of Dramatic Art of Fine Arts, an institution of which he was also acting professor before becoming part of the Presidential Council of Culture where he created the Coordinating Center for the Performing Arts (1997-2000).

Winner of the Casandra Award for Best Actor in 1989, the Talía de Plata Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1991, and the Talía de Plata Award for Best Children’s Producer in 1984 being worthy of another 7 nominations as actor, producer and stage director.

He has toured numerous stages in Puerto Rico, New York, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Venezuela, being praised by The New York Time for his performance at the Public Theater for the play Sueño de una noche de verano.

In the graphic field, he has been responsible for illustrating numerous educational books and was the Executive Producer and Designer of the CD RO0M National System of Culture of the Dominican Republic, a multimedia project of the Secretary of State for Culture and the Organization of Ibero-American States, OEI.

In April 1999 he held his first graphic exhibition at the Prats Ventós Cultural Center in the Colonial City.

He was National Head of the Portal of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean, of the UNESCO Regional Office and currently directs the National System of Free Schools, a program of the Secretary of State for Culture that provides artistic training services to 7 thousand young people. children and housewives in 48 localities of the country.

In his training process he has ventured into various disciplines, among which is painting and sculpture, to which he spent three years at the National School of Fine Arts. He started in photography by the hand of Wifredo García in the Casa de Teatro workshops and learned to handle digital design programs at the National Institute of Informatics and other centers.

He owes his acting training to the Venezuelan Rómulo Rivas and his training as a theater director to Boris Kowloski, from the Royal Theater in Stockholm. He completed a diploma in cultural management through the UASD and the Center for Overcoming Culture of Cuba.

He is also a graduate of the INFOTEP Methodological Training Course for Professional Training Facilitators.

He has lectured and given workshops at the Eugenio María de Hostos University in New York, the Ibero-American University in Santo Domingo and the Magdalena University in Colombia.

For five years he directed the theater and puppet workshops for children at Casa de Teatro. He has published research papers in the magazines Conjunto, from Cuba, El Público, from Spain, as well as Vetas, Ventana and Areíto from the Dominican Republic and Tramoya from Miami. He is the author of “Aprender a Aprender, an art education module for elementary school teachers in the Dominican Republic”.

His experience as a cultural manager and administrator includes the direction of the National School of Dramatic Art of Fine Arts from 1991 to 1997 and the direction of the National System of Free Schools of the Ministry of Culture from 2004 to 2013, work for which he received the Personality award. Cultural 2008 awarded by the Ministry of Culture.

He was also an acting professor at the Instituto de las Américas Film School, ITLA.

+ The family

Ángel Mejía leaves two children orphaned, one of three and the other of seven, with his wife Lucery Reynoso, cultural manager. With Hilda Matos he procreated three children: the dancer Tatiana Mejía, Miguel Angel Mejía or Miguel Angel Soul (who excelled in Dominicana Got Talent) and the filmmaker Camilo Mejía.

“Angel had with Hilda three wonderful children, artists, creators just like their parents; and with and with Lucery two very special children, very intelligent, two little geniuses,” Basilio Nova told Listín Diario.

Then he added: “Angel is not a friend, he is another brother that life gave me, his departure is a hard blow because we were always close, with many activities that we did together, a great brother is leaving me.”