Pippo Delbono

Pippo Delbono (born 1 June 1959 in Varazze, Italy) is an Italian author, actor, and director. Pippo Delbono began training in traditional theatre in Denmark, studying the principles of oriental theatre, through a rigorous work on body and voice. Later, in Germany, Delbono was invited by Pina Bausch to follow her work. At the beginning of the 80's he founded the Compagnia Pippo Delbono, creating most of his works with them, from Il Tempo degli Assassini (1987) to La Gioia (2018).He does not stage plays but, rather, total creations, devised with a stable group of actors whose number has grown through the years. The encounter with socially marginalized people determines a turning point in his poetical research: that's how Barboni (1997) was born. Some of these actors – among them Bobò, deaf-mute, who had been kept in an asylum in Aversa, near Naples, for forty-five years and recently died – have kept working with the company and are still a central part of this experience.

The works that followed — La rabbia dedicated to Pasolini, Guerra, Esodo, Gente di plastica, Racconti di giugno, Urlo, Il silenzio, Questo buio feroce, La menzogna, Dopo la battaglia, Orchidee, Vangelo, La gioia — like the ones before, have been performed worldwide in more than fifty countries, in theaters and festivals, including the Festival d'Avignon (where a lot of the company's creations were presented), Barcelona's Grec, Theater Spektakel in Zurich, Festwochen in Wien, Festival TransAmeriques in Montreal, Venice Biennale, etc.

In 2009, he was awarded the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities, in Wrocław.Several theatres, including the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris, Piccolo Teatro in Milan, Teatro Argentina in Rome, among others, present regularly his performances. Henry V — his only creation based on an existing play – is the only Italian production of Shakespeare that has ever been invited to perform at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His production Vangelo (2016) has been realized at Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb with actors of his company together with Croatian actors, dancers, musicians and chorus and with refugees of the PIAM refugee camp in Asti (Italy). The performance has two versions: Opera with chorus and orchestra, that premiered in Italy at Teatro Comunale in Bologna, and Drama version, that premiered at Thèatre Vidy – Lausanne. The music of the performance are by Enzo Avitabile who won the Ubu Prize for them. His last theatre creation, La gioia, premiered in March 2018 and has been presented at Theatre Olympics in Delhi and Bhopal (India), at Hong Kong Arts Festival, in Shizuoka (Japan), in Tunisia, Spain, Portugal. and it will be on tour in the theatrical season 2021/2022.