Quintero, Jose Benjamin

▪ 2000

      Panamanian-born American director (b. Oct. 15, 1924, Panama City, Pan.—d. Feb. 26, 1999, New York, N.Y.), was a founder of the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City's Greenwich Village, the theatre whose productions sparked the growth of Off-Broadway into a nationally important theatre movement. In addition, his stagings of the plays of Eugene O'Neill brought about a worldwide rebirth in interest in that playwright's works at a time when they were considered outdated. Quintero moved to New York following his education at the University of Southern California (B.A., 1948) and the Goodman Theatre School in Chicago (1948–49). His first directorial effort was a production of The Glass Menagerie at the Woodstock (N.Y.) Summer Theatre in 1949, and the following year he began directing at Circle in the Square. In 1952 Quintero established his reputation and that of actress Geraldine Page with a revival of a Tennessee Williams play that had failed on Broadway, Summer and Smoke, and the Off-Broadway boom was ignited. In May 1956 he directed his first O'Neill play, a revival of The Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards, who would star in a number of Quintero-directed O'Neill works, and later that year he directed the original Broadway production of Long Day's Journey into Night. Other O'Neill works Quintero presented included Strange Interlude (1963), Hughie (1964), A Moon for the Misbegotten (1973; Tony Award for best director), Anna Christie (1977), and A Touch of the Poet (1977). He also directed the motion picture The Roman Summer of Mrs. Stone (1961), a number of operas, and television specials. Though Quintero feared that his career would end in 1987 when cancer caused him to have his larynx removed, he was able to use a mechanical voice box and returned to directing with a revival (1988) of Long Day's Journey into Night, as well as branching out into university teaching and lecturing. In 1996, 40 years after his first direction of an O'Neill play, Quintero directed the one-acts The Long Voyage Home and Ile, his enthusiasm for the playwright undiminished.

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