Antonio Pantojas

Antonio Pantojas (born November 25, 1948 in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico) is an actor, comedian, dancer and a pioneer in the art of drag.

Antonio Pantojas was born in Río Piedras, the largest district of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico in the San José area. At the age of 10, his greatest passion was dancing, and Madame Brewer and Mario Cox were his dancing teachers then. Later, in his high school years, he was awarded with a scholarship, offered by his Spanish teacher, with dancing professor, Ana García, his tutor of a lifetime.

Pantojas's professional training led him to become the dancing instructor and director of the San José Ballet, in Río Piedras. His missionary work, was to promote wholesome, and enjoyable cultural folkroric, and ballet dancing in his town. Later he enrolled in Ballets de San Juan, (San Juan Ballet Company), and participated in the Ita Medina and Sarita Ayala's ballet companies as well.

Pantojas, broadening his horizons, started taking acting lessons with Ernesto Concepción in Walter Mercado's Academy. He also achieved a Bachelor's degree in drama at Río Piedras University.

As the 1970s came about, he made his professional debut as an actor at the Latin American Theater Festival in the Coop-Arte theater in Barrio Obrero Santurce. Later he carried out the role of Herod, in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Matienzo Theater in Santurce, alongside Marian Pabón, among others.

Pantoja's career as a transvestite performer came along as an eventuality, because once, he was auditioning for a role in a theater production, and the only one left was a woman's part. He accepted the challenge to portray that role, and it was a happening. From then on, it became his primary career.

He has written over 20 club acts, which he has taken throughout Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Mexico and Perú, and also hosted his own talk show, Estoy Aquí, (I'm Here), in WIPR-TV, channel 6-affiliated broadcasting from PBS).

A seasoned night club varieté entertainer, Pantojas made waves beginning in the Puerto Rico night club scene during the 1970s, with his musical incendiary political satires and his gender-bending characters. A versatile thespian, he has played roles as diverse as Estragon and Pozzo, in Waiting for Godot, Juliet in El Público, (The Audience) by Federico García Lorca (in its world premiere in Puerto Rico in 1978), the small-time street-wise narrator in La verdadera historia de Pedro Navaja, one of the longest-running plays in Puerto Rico's history, based in the Three Penny Opera. Pantojas has produced, directed, taught, written and performed for more than 12 years for the Productora Nacional de Teatro, Inc., a department from the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (National Cultural Ministry) in Puerto Rico with which he staged his version of Alexandre Dumas, fils’ Camille, Lorca's La Casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba), Jules Tasca, An American Comedy, Venezuelan Isaac Chocrón's La Revolución, (The Revolution), Argentine Alejandro Robino's, Manzana Podrida, (Rotten Apple) and Chilean Marco Antonio De la Parra's, La Secreta Obscenidad de Cada Día, (The Secret Obscenity of Every Day), as well as the theatrical versions of Weekend at Bernie's, and The Full Monty. Pantojas has also appeared in plays such as: La Cage Aux Folles, (The Bird's Cage), as "Zaza" and "Albin", and Love, Valour and Compassion, as "Buzz". As a playwright, he has taken several workshops in New York City (writing) and Florence (creativity).

In 2003, Pantojas moved to New York, and decided not to perform again as a transvestite actor. His reason for this decision is his age, 58. Pantojas stated that his face and his body have changed, and as he is a versatile actor, he can carry out different roles, pursuing his career as a performer in many ways.

Presently he's been portraying a priest, Father Amado, in the theater production: El Silencio es Salud, (Silence is Health), performed at the Centro Cultural Clemente Soto Vélez (The Clemente Soto Cultural Center), at the Lower East Side of Manhattan.