For it’s 80th anniversary, the National Radio of Colombia is celebrating it’s roots. It just so happens that their roots and mine intertwine, as my grandfather was the Founding Director of the station. Award winning journalist Ana María Lara did some sleuthing and reached out to me for an interview. I connected her with my cousin, Ricardo Camacho, award winning founder of Teatro Libre in Bogotá, and the result is this lovely homage to Dr. Rafael Guizado.
Reviewers, scholars, and historians have documented that his radioplays were seminal to the development of modern Colombian theatre. At a time when most Colombian theatregoers were being entertained by touring companies from other countries, my grandfather wrote original radioplays, and commissioned other Colombian poets from the Los Nuevos and Piedra y Cielo literary movements to do the same. The first homegrown radioplays to air on La Radiodifusora Nacional, including Complemento and Brazos Caídos, were soon adapted for the stage. They became the repertoire of the first National Theatre Company which toured the country in 1941, and set a new literary standard for Colombian theatre. The theatre arts which were developed under his direction at La Radiodifusora Nacional prepared fertile soil for the growth of Colombian theatre which followed.