Miriam Colón: Puerto Rican Icon and Theatrical Traveler

Miriam Colón, Puerto Rico’s greatest theatrical export, was born on August 20, 1936, in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Her international career spanned more than fifty years and her appearances on the stage were balanced with a productive television and film career. She served as a representative of Hollywood’s Golden Age studio system of the 1950s, performing with the likes of Marlon Brando and Karl Malden, as well as mentoring thousands of actors inspired by her legacy as the founder of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre. In short, Miriam Colón was a living legend and a Latina icon responsible for the careers of countless performers, playwrights, and practitioners who followed in her footsteps. Miriam Colón shuffled off her mortal coil on March 3, 2017, in her beloved, adopted New York City.

While a child, Miriam experienced a profound feeling of separation when her mother and father divorced and she moved to San Juan’s public housing project, La residencia de las casas. As a child she was unaware of theatre, chiefly because of the structured decision-making of her mother. As Miriam recounts, “My mother was the most wonderful woman and mother in the world but things like the theatre and plays, even storytelling, were not a part of my upbringing. For her, it didn’t matter what field I went into because she would be supportive regardless. She is my single greatest inspiration.” This meant for the young Miriam a life where determination, and the strong role of a single woman, influenced the decisions she would make as an actress, businesswoman, and producer.

During her early teens at the Ramon Baldoriatry de Castro School she met Marcos Colón, a University of Puerto Rico drama student, who was assigned to direct a production by the head of the Theatre Department, Leopoldo Santiago Lavandero. Though Miriam had no experience with plays, she looked forward to socializing with her friends in a non-academic setting and volunteered to audition. Soon, Miriam was cast in her first play and thus began her love for the theatrical arts. The teenage Miriam became obsessed with the process of creation and extremely depressed when the play was over, misunderstanding the fact that Marcos Colón would move on to direct plays at other schools. Upon her insistence, he instructed her to send a letter to the head of the department at UPR. Luckily, Lavandero had seen Miriam in the play and allowed her, as a junior high school student, to attend classes at the university, with the directive to observe only. Soon, Miriam was performing in university productions alongside such talented practitioners as director Victoria Espinosa.

During a June 2009 interview in her beautiful 94^th Street brownstone, Miriam informed me it was her initial work with UPR’s touring company that sparked the idea for the creation of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre: “My desire to perform came from a necessity to bring theatre to the people, to the community. When the University of Puerto Rico’s Touring Company would go into the small towns in Puerto Rico, I would see their faces light up. It was like the circus for them. We were creating the strongest community bond…through theatre.” After finally matriculating at the University of Puerto Rico and studying with many of the professors she had worked with as a high school student, the university created a scholarship to send Miriam to study at the Dramatic Workshop and Technical Institute with the iconic Erwin Piscator. This scholarship guaranteed that Miriam would perform in New York City.

While studying at the Institute, Miriam began making the “rounds” to agents and casting directors as well as befriending some of the most popular working actors in New York. Eventually a colleague asked if she would be interested in becoming his partner for an audition at the famed Actor’s Studio. Miriam, unaware of the stature of the institution, agreed and following her audition asked to speak with Lee Strasberg. Miriam, as feisty as ever, entered his office with an album of pictures and Spanish language reviews...