Identity elements
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Collection
Title
Teresa María Rojas Papers
Date(s)
- 1953-2008 (Creation)
Extent
12 Boxes
Name of creator
Biographical history
Teresa María Rojas was born in Havana, Cuba and graduated from the University of Havana in 1957. She studied acting at Sala Prometeo, a small theater located in Havana. After leaving Cuba in 1960, she went to Venezuela and then to Miami in 1963. Rojas began working as a professor of theater and acting at Miami-Dade College (MDC, also formerly known as Miami-Dade Community College) in 1972. In 1985, Rojas founded the Prometeo Theater, a bilingual theater group at MDC and assumed position of its artisitc director. More than 400 students worked in the Prometeo Theater each year. During her teaching career, Rojas has performed, produced and directed more than 90 plays. In recognition of her teaching, she has been endowed with three Teaching Chairs. Further, one of her former students, Nilo Cruz, wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning play in the drama category, "Anna in the Tropics." Rojas performed in the play, when in returend to Miami after its Broadway debut. Rojas has over 35 years of theater acting and teaching experience.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
This collection documents the activities of Teresa María Rojas in her capacity as a theater actress, theater professor at Miami-Dade College (MDC, also formerly known as Miami-Dade Community College) for more than 30 years and the founder of the Prometeo Student Theater Group.
The majority of the materials document Rojas' role as artistic director of the Prometeo Theater and the success of the students who performed in it. Portfolios and reviews contain information regarding her teaching at MDC, in the capacity of the director of the Prometeo Theater and an instructor. The papers contain scrapbooks chronicling her work as the director of the Prometeo Theater from 1985. The collection also documents her professsional work as an actress in Miami, Cuba and other Latin American countries. Her performances in various acclaimed productions are documented by clippings and photographs. Rojas measured her own success as a professor and artistic director of Prometeo by the success of her students. She played the engaging and lighthearted role of Ofelia in "Ana in the Tropics". As Ofelia, Rojas took on a similar matronly role as the one she had among her students at MDC.
Selected photographs, playbills, programs, letters, and clippings from the collection are available on the University of Miami Digital Collections portal under the CHC Theater Collections tab.
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
This collection is open for research.
Physical access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Requests to publish or display materials from this collection require written permission from the rights owner. Please, contact chc@miami.edu for more information.
Preferred citation: Teresa María Rojas Papers, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida.
Languages of the material
- English
- Spanish
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Acquisition and appraisal elements
Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Gift of Teresa María Rojas, 2009.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Selected materials from this collection have been digitized.
https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/digital/collection/theater
Related archival materials
Related descriptions
Notes element
General note
Other Information:
Rights Statement:
The text of this webpage is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).
Specialized notes
Alternative identifier(s)
Description control element
Rules or conventions
Sources used
Archivist's note
Processed by Rebecca González-Kreisberg 2010. Edited and published by Beata Bergen June 2011. Finding aid subjects terms assigned by Ana D. Rodríguez, February 2013. Updated by Rebeca Gonzalez, May 2021.
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Miami Dade College (Subject)