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FREE + Open to public. First come, first served.
Join us for a day celebrating the legacy of Dario Fo with Robert Brustein, the legendary founder of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T) and Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Evening conversation with Robert Brustein (via Skype) ; plus actor Joseph Grifasi reads excerpts from selected Dario Fo plays:
Accidental Death of An Anarchist (1970) Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas (1992) Mistero Buffo (1969) We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! (1974)
(Plays TBC)
Afternoon screenings curated by Rossella Menna.
Additional support from Rossella Menna (Dramaturg, performing arts curator), and Mariateresa Pizza (Director, Franca Rame Dario Fo Archive/Rome); the Italian Playwrights Project, Valeria Orani and The Italian Cultural Institute, Giorgio Van Straten.
The Segal Center honored Franca Rame in 2013 after her passing.
Afternoon screenings:
2:00pmMistero Buffo Part 1 (Palazzina Liberty, 1977)
– subtitled English 60 min excerpt 3:00pmMorte accidentale di un anarchico (Teatro Cristallo, Milano 1987) – subtitled English 60 min excerpt 4:00pmThe Theatre of Dario Fo (documentary, 1984) – in English 50 min 5:00pmDario Fo and Franca Rame: A Nobel for Two (documentary, 1998) in English 55 min Directed by Lorena Luciano & Filippo Piscopo
Photo courtesy of the artist
Awarded the coveted National Medal for the Arts in 2011 by President Obama, Robert Brustein—a veteran of World War II—has been a playwright, critic, teacher, actor, director, and founder of
two major repertory theatre companies, the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard. Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Suffolk University, he is a former Professor of English at Harvard University (now Senior Research Fellow), and New Republic Theatre Critic for over forty years. He now writes regularly for the Huffington Post, and teaches Dramaturgy students at the Drama School. He was Dean of the Yale School of Drama for thirteen years, where he also founded Yale Theatre magazine and the Yale Cabaret. He served for 20 years as Director of the Loeb Drama Center where he founded the ART Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard.
In Fugadal Senato 2013@ Photo credit: Luca Vittorio Toffolon
Dario Fo (24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian actor-playwright, comedian, singer, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, painter, political campaigner for the Italian left-wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. Fo’s plays, in a hybrid Brechtian tradition, have been translated into 30 languages, and he was considered the most widely performed contemporary playwright in world theatre. Much of Fo’s dramatic work, co-created with his partner Franca Rame (18 July 1929 – 29 May 2013), depends on improvisation and comprises the recovery of “illegitimate” forms of theatre, such as those performed by giullari (medieval strolling players) and, more famously, the ancient Italian style of commedia dell’arte.
His plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world, including in Argentina, Chile, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the UK[6] and Yugoslavia. His work of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is peppered with criticisms of assassinations, corruption, organised crime, racism, Roman Catholic theology and war. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he took to lampooning Forza Italia and its leader Silvio Berlusconi, while his targets of the 2010s included the banks amid the European sovereign-debt crisis.
Fo’s solo pièce célèbre, titled Mistero Buffo and performed across Europe, Canada and Latin America over a 30-year period, is recognised as one of the most controversial and popular spectacles in postwar European theatre. The play has been denounced by by Cardinal Ugo Poletti from the Vatican as “the most blasphemous show in the history of television”. Fo considered himself an atheist. The 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature marked the “international acknowledgment of Fo as a major figure in twentieth-century world theatre.” The Swedish Academy praised Fo as a writer “who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden”. Dario Fo owned and operated his own theatre company.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
JOE GRIFASI Recent appearances include Endgame at Long Wharf Theater, Julie Taymore’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Encores revival of Little Shop of Horrors. Broadway shows include Dinner at Eight, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The 1940’s Radio Hour and Happy End. Other credits: The Boys Next Door (Drama Desk Award), Says I Says He, Phoenix Theater, Hughie Goodman Theater, Room Service, Enemies (Williamstown), About Face and AMidsummer Night’s Dream (Yale Rep). Directing credits include One Slight Hitch by Lewis Black, A Cup of Coffee by Preston Sturges and As I Remember It at The Kennedy Center. Joe has appeared in over fifty feature films including, Presumed Innocent, The Deer Hunter, Beaches, Naked Gun, Benny & Joon, Matewan, FX and Natural Born Killers. TV appearances include, Bull,The Good Wife, Law & Order, Rosanne and LA Law. He is on the faculty of The New School of Drama.
(Untitled)
Remembering Dario Fo with Robert Brustein
« Back to EventsPhoto by Guido Harari/Milan (1995)
Monday, April 24
Segal Theatre
6:30pm Conversation + 2:00pm Screenings
*Watch livestream here at 6:30pm!
FREE + Open to public. First come, first served.
Join us for a day celebrating the legacy of Dario Fo with Robert Brustein, the legendary founder of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T) and Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Evening conversation with Robert Brustein (via Skype) ; plus actor Joseph Grifasi reads excerpts from selected Dario Fo plays:
Accidental Death of An Anarchist (1970)
Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas (1992)
Mistero Buffo (1969)
We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! (1974)
(Plays TBC)
Afternoon screenings curated by Rossella Menna.
Additional support from Rossella Menna (Dramaturg, performing arts curator), and Mariateresa Pizza (Director, Franca Rame Dario Fo Archive/Rome); the Italian Playwrights Project, Valeria Orani and The Italian Cultural Institute, Giorgio Van Straten.
The Segal Center honored Franca Rame in 2013 after her passing.
Afternoon screenings:
2:00pm Mistero Buffo Part 1 (Palazzina Liberty, 1977)
– subtitled English 60 min excerpt
3:00pm Morte accidentale di un anarchico (Teatro Cristallo, Milano 1987) – subtitled English 60 min excerpt
4:00pm The Theatre of Dario Fo (documentary, 1984) – in English 50 min
5:00pm Dario Fo and Franca Rame: A Nobel for Two (documentary, 1998) in English 55 min Directed by Lorena Luciano & Filippo Piscopo
Photo courtesy of the artist
Awarded the coveted National Medal for the Arts in 2011 by President Obama, Robert Brustein—a veteran of World War II—has been a playwright, critic, teacher, actor, director, and founder of
two major repertory theatre companies, the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard. Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Suffolk University, he is a former Professor of English at Harvard University (now Senior Research Fellow), and New Republic Theatre Critic for over forty years. He now writes regularly for the Huffington Post, and teaches Dramaturgy students at the Drama School. He was Dean of the Yale School of Drama for thirteen years, where he also founded Yale Theatre magazine and the Yale Cabaret. He served for 20 years as Director of the Loeb Drama Center where he founded the ART Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard.
In Fugadal Senato 2013@ Photo credit: Luca Vittorio Toffolon
Dario Fo (24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian actor-playwright, comedian, singer, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, painter, political campaigner for the Italian left-wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. Fo’s plays, in a hybrid Brechtian tradition, have been translated into 30 languages, and he was considered the most widely performed contemporary playwright in world theatre. Much of Fo’s dramatic work, co-created with his partner Franca Rame (18 July 1929 – 29 May 2013), depends on improvisation and comprises the recovery of “illegitimate” forms of theatre, such as those performed by giullari (medieval strolling players) and, more famously, the ancient Italian style of commedia dell’arte.
His plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world, including in Argentina, Chile, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the UK[6] and Yugoslavia. His work of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is peppered with criticisms of assassinations, corruption, organised crime, racism, Roman Catholic theology and war. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he took to lampooning Forza Italia and its leader Silvio Berlusconi, while his targets of the 2010s included the banks amid the European sovereign-debt crisis.
Fo’s solo pièce célèbre, titled Mistero Buffo and performed across Europe, Canada and Latin America over a 30-year period, is recognised as one of the most controversial and popular spectacles in postwar European theatre. The play has been denounced by by Cardinal Ugo Poletti from the Vatican as “the most blasphemous show in the history of television”. Fo considered himself an atheist. The 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature marked the “international acknowledgment of Fo as a major figure in twentieth-century world theatre.” The Swedish Academy praised Fo as a writer “who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden”. Dario Fo owned and operated his own theatre company.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
JOE GRIFASI Recent appearances include Endgame at Long Wharf Theater, Julie Taymore’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Encores revival of Little Shop of Horrors. Broadway shows include Dinner at Eight, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The 1940’s Radio Hour and Happy End. Other credits: The Boys Next Door (Drama Desk Award), Says I Says He, Phoenix Theater, Hughie Goodman Theater, Room Service, Enemies (Williamstown), About Face and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Yale Rep). Directing credits include One Slight Hitch by Lewis Black, A Cup of Coffee by Preston Sturges and As I Remember It at The Kennedy Center. Joe has appeared in over fifty feature films including, Presumed Innocent, The Deer Hunter, Beaches, Naked Gun, Benny & Joon, Matewan, FX and Natural Born Killers. TV appearances include, Bull, The Good Wife, Law & Order, Rosanne and LA Law. He is on the faculty of The New School of Drama.