Author Herminio Vargas-Tollents was born in Puerto Rico in 1944. After concluding undergraduate work with a BA in education at age twenty-one, he traveled to New York where he attended Columbia Uni...ver másAuthor Herminio Vargas-Tollents was born in Puerto Rico in 1944. After concluding undergraduate work with a BA in education at age twenty-one, he traveled to New York where he attended Columbia University for an MA in the same field. He later transferred to New York University, where he finished all course requirements toward a PhD concentrating in sociology of education. He worked at different capacities with the New York City Board of Education for a total of nineteen years and taught at the college level for twenty-three years, mostly with City University of New York, conducting courses with the School of Education at Brooklyn College and the Department of Puerto Rican Studies. He also taught a course in method acting for prospective teachers with the Theater Department.
Having chosen the theater as his extracurricular activity since the inception of his career, Herminio participated in different activities connected with various local Hispanic community theaters in the area by acting, directing, writing, and assisting in the creation of new groups. The Nine O’clock Soap Opera, presented originally in Spanish as La Novela de las Nueve at the Gershwin Auditorium in Brooklyn College, was one of his first plays. The title was later changed, considering the word “novella” sounds more like the Spanish word for TV soaps. An incipient translation into English was later presented at the Henry Street Settlement’s New Federal Theater and at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Out-of-Doors Festival in September of 1979.ver menos