Departures of note

Javier Semprún was a Spanish actor and director closely tied to the theatrical development of Valladolid, where he was born in 1952. He was one of the founding members of Teatro Corsario alongside Fernando Urdiales, Rosa Manzano and Luis Miguel García, a company that became a reference point in the city's performing arts scene.

For a quarter of a century he lived with encephalopathy, an illness that forced him to leave the stage before he later returned, drawing on the condition's after-effects in his work. He won the 2011 award for best actor from the Unión de Actores de Castilla y León and received the Premio Giordano Bruno in 2013 in recognition of his career.

Among his notable works were El cuervo (2009), adapted from Edgar Allan Poe, and El patio (2016), by Spiro Scimone, both of which he starred in and directed. He died in Valladolid at the age of 74.