QEPD/RIP Max Ferrá

Director and founder of INTAR Theater, Max Ferrá, passed away on Saturday, February 4, 2017 in Miami, Florida. Born in Camagüey, Cuba, he emigrated to the United States in 1960 where he worked first in a recording studio and then for an airline so he could travel. In 1963, he, along with Elsa Ortiz, Frank Robles, Gladys Ortiz, Oscar García, Antonio Gonzales-Jaén, and Benjamín López, founded ADAL (Agrupación de Arte Latinoamericano) which eventually became INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center in 1966.

As artistic director of INTAR, he commissioned and produced more than 150 plays in English written by young Latino and Latin American playwrights. He directed more than 70 plays in INTAR and other theaters in the United States and in Latin America. INTAR Theater, with its varied programs, including a MainStage Season and the NewWorks Lab, has played a major role in identifying, supporting, nurturing, developing and producing unique theatrical Latino voices that have made a significant impact in American dramatic writing.

It was his vision to bring to INTAR the Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Laboratory (HPRL), created and run by María Irene Fornés from 1981 until 1992. This lab fostered and trained many of the most prominent Latino playwrights in the American theatre, including Migdalia Cruz, Nilo Cruz, Lorraine Llamas, Eduardo Machado, Octavio Solis, Caridad Svich, and Carmelita Tropicana, among many others. When he retired from INTAR in 2004, he moved to Miami where he ran Actors Arena Group in Miami-Dade College–North Campus. He died surrounded by his Miami actors and theater friends in the city, his sister, and his partner for many years, Winston González.

MAX FERRÁ

Que en paz descanse / Rest in peace