Romeo Castellucci
Director
Romeo Castellucci was born in Cesena in 1960. He graduated in scenic design and painting at the Academy
of Fine Arts, Bologna. At the age of 20, he started working as a theatre director. Together with Claudia
Castellucci and Chiara Guidi, he founded the Socetas Raffaello Sanzio in 1981. At the beginning of the
1980s he started combining his interest in the theatre with painting, also organising some exhibitions.
Since then he has produced a large number of works as author, director and designer of sets, lights, sound
effects and costumes. He is well known in Italy and abroad as a theatre author aiming at a total perception
and a synaestethic audience understanding. He has also written several theoretical essays on staging based
upon his own theatre's experience.
After the first autobiographical production, Santa Sofia-Teatro Khmer, (1986), the interest of Romeo
Castellucci and of the Socetas Raffaello Sanzio moved to the Middle Eastern cycle, including La discesa Di
Inanna (1989), Gilgamesh (1990) and Iside e Osiride (1990). This was followed by the classical cycle, with
Amleto: La veemente esteriorit della morte di un mollusco (1992) adapted from Shakespeare, Orestea (una
commedia organica?) (1995) from Eschylus, Giulio Cesare (1997) adapted from Shakespeare. After the
latest production, Genesi From the Museum of Sleep (1999), by Romeo Castellucci himself, his interest
shifted to musical theatre with the concert for voice and sound instruments, Voyage au bout de la nuit
(1999), adapted from Louis Ferdinand Cline's work, and Il Combattimento (2000), by Claudio Monteverdi
and Scott Gibbons.
In 2002 Romeo Castellucci designed Tragedia Endogonidia a cycle of ten episodes including a series of
bases corresponding to as many European cities. They are the cities participating in the project and
engaged in the co-production, also funded by the European Community Program Culture 2000:
Avignon/Festival dAvignon 2002, Berlin/Hebbel Theatre, Brussels/Kunsten Festival des Arts,
Bergen/Bergen International Festival Norway, LIFT (London International Festival) Paris/Odon Thatre de
lEurope and Festival DAutomne, Rome/Romaeuropa Festival, Strasbourg/Le Maillon Thatre de
Strasbourg, Marseille/Les Bernardines.
It is a new dramatic unit based on the concept of open performance, destined to change over time like a body
and demand a summing-up of dramaturgy, economy, distribution and theatrical organisation.
Romeo Castellucci has been working with a group of people who have formed and followed the Societas
Raffaello Sanzio since the beginning. So far he has not directed any work outside the company of origin,
evidence of the importance for he attaches to trusting a group of people whom he knows thoroughly and who
share with him the need for accuracy, artistic rigour and temporal consistency.
Romeo Castellucci recently also inaugurated a season of plastic art monograph exhibitions which took place
in Palermo (Rhetorica, Mene Tekel Peres, Palermo City Council, ex-mental hospital La Vignicella), Bologna
(Mene Tekel Peres, Bologna 2000 Events, La Salara), Siena (L'Adolescente sulla torre d'avorio, Siena City
Council, Palazzo delle Papesse)and Rome (RomaEuropa Festival, Ex Reformatory Istituto San Michele).
Romeo Castellucci has also made the videos Romolo und Remo, I Miserabili, Martyrion, Interferon, Epitaph
e del cortometraggio Brentano, a black and white 35mm film which was screened at the 1997 Locarno
Festival. Romeo Castellucci is often invited to participate in discussions concerning drama theory and to give
talks in the main theatre centres of Europe, as well as lectures in universities. He has also written extensively
on dramaturgy and his books include Il teatro della socetas Raffaello Sanzio, Ubulibri, Milan (1992),
Rhetorica. mene tekel peres, Edizioni Aldo Miguel Grompon, Rome (2000), Epopea della Polvere, Ubulibri,
Milan (2001) and Les Plerins de la matire, Les Solitaires Intempestifs (2001).
Romeo Castellucci was awarded Grand Prix de la Critique-Paris (2000) for the staging of Genesi From the
Museum of Sleep. On 22 February 2002, he was appointed Chevalier dans lordre des Arts et des Lettres by
the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of France.
