THE TRUTH ON THE STAGE
Through comparison with long established traditions, the workshop concentrates on training the director to search for the Truth spurring the actor to use to the maximum all the techniques and devices at his disposal. His body, his voice and his focus need to become well-honed instruments, responsive, sensitive and agile and the director needs to encourage him, follow him, show him the road. The director’s work must be focused on the Actor’s voice and body according him on the Theme of the play. We create different kind of performances only in collaboration with the Actors. From constantly searching for a new and personal perception of the truth the director will discover the change in behavior, in gesture. He will learn to train himself to synthesize, to acquire the fluidity of his thought and of his idea.
About Neil LaBute and Marco Calvani
Neil LaBute received his Master of Fine Arts degree in dramatic writing from New York University and was the recipient of a literary fellowship to study at the Royal Court Theatre. Films include In the Company of Men (New York Critics Circle Award for Best First Feature, Filmmakers’ Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival), Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty, Possession, The Shape of Things – a film adaptation of his play by the same title – The Wicker Man, Lakeview Terrace and Death at a Funeral. Plays include bash: Reasons to be pretty, Latter-day plays, The Shape of Things, The Distance From Here, The Mercy Seat, Autobahn, This Is How It Goes, Some Girl(s), Wrecks, In a Dark Dark House, Helter Skelter, The Furies and The War on Terror. LaBute is the author of several fictional pieces that have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar and Playboy, among others. A collection of his short stories was published by Grove/Atlantic.
Marco Calvani was trained as an actor at the Teatro della Limonaia of Florence and the Duse Studio of Rome, his debut as a playwright was in 2002 with Quasi commissioned by the European Social Forum.
Other work includes: TeLoLeggoNegliOcchi! (2003), Prima che tu dorma commissioned by the Todi Art Festival (2004), La Vita Bassa/Low Life (2005) commissioned by the Phoenix Theatre of London, Le Mani Forti/Strong Hands (2006) a piece broadly based on the tragedy of Novi Ligure and Olio/Oil (2008) which makes his directorial debut. In Summer 2008 he took part in the 2nd International Playwrights Retreat organized by La MaMa, where he developed a first draft of La Città Sotto/The City Beneath. The play was commissioned by the Grec Fundaciò of Barcelone and it was presented for the very first time at a staged reading at La MaMa Theatre in February 2009, translated into English by Bing Taylor. In 2009 he wrote and directed Penelope in Groznyj, which had its debut at Berlin’s Kunsthaus Tacheles. He was also a guest of the Ubud Writers & Readers International Festival of Bali, Indonesia. In 2010 wrote Unghie/Nails with Marco Marra and directed it for the Garofano Verde Festival of homosexual theatre in Rome and he taught at the Obrador Internacional d’Estiu at the Sala Beckett in Barcelona. With his play Les Mains Fortes he is one the young Italian playwrights most performed in France. In 2011 he was invited as Italy’s representative by the Théâtre de la Ville of Paris in a project of international writers, le Bal Littéraire under the direction of Fabrice Melquiot. In the same year, he won a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts of Paris and he received the Siae Prize as the best young playwright on the occasion of the 54th annual Festival of Spoleto. In 2012 Neil LaBute will direct for the very first time his new play Roba di questo mondo/Things of this world. He is the founder and artistic director of Mixò, an international cultural centre promoting original works for theatre and cinema by young actors and writers. His works have been translated and performed in six languages.
