The Dominican Republic is celebrating the life of theater icon, Ivan Garcia Guerra. He passed away on Saturday, 22 March 2025. He was 87 years old.
Garcia was an actor, high school and university professor of acting and creativity, narrator and media professional. He is best known for his excellence in acting, writing and directing theater. He was the director of the Bellas Artes public arts system. In 2015, he won the highest distinction granted by the Soberano Awards, the leading show business awards in the country.
In an interview with El Dia in 2018, he recalled how in 1965, speaking from a radio booth of the only station operating at that time, he had opposed the American invasion in the April 1965 War. “We knew that at any moment they could come in and take our lives. That situation showed me to be a person who does what he has to do,” he said emotionally at the time.
With around 70 years of acting career and more than 300 plays staged, García said in that 2018 interview that he never managed to get rid of stage fright. In the interview with El Dia, he said this feeling demonstrates the importance of the work and the demand to do things well. “For me it is the secret of success,” he said.
The actor urged young people starting out in acting to consider this discipline as a job and not as entertainment. He said it is a career that requires a lot of strength, mastery of intelligence and spirituality.
Iván García was born in San Pedro de Macorís, on 26 February 1938. He studied painting and music at Bellas Artes and the National Conservatory, respectively. He would go on to be the director of Bellas Artes, the Dominican school and regent of the arts.
Read more in Spanish:
N Digital
El Dia
El Dia
Diario Libre
25 March 2025