The Northeast Theatre Announces “Commedia in Italia 2008″

A Life Changing Adventure That’s Lots of Fun

You arrive in Rome, the signs are unreadable, the language, though beautiful, is nothing but noise to you, and the city, magnificent, is still foreign. Then you travel an hour to Orvieto where you study Italian with others from around the world for an intensive week. Immediately after, you move to Aquapendente to study with Italians masters of commedia dell’arte, and with Zuppa del Giorno, the contemporary commedia troupe of The Northeast Theatre. By the time you leave Rome, three weeks later, you have improvised a performance based on a scenario you helped to create, in Italian, twice, in two theatres designed in the 18th and 19th centuries.

A miracle? Not exactly, but it is a testament to an amazing experience of total immersion in Italian language, culture, and theatrical heritage that you will never forget. Yet, as profound an effect as it has on your life, it is just as profoundly fun. Students from 16 to 65 are invited to Italy again this summer, in June or July, for three amazing weeks of adventure and learning.

The phrase “in bocca al lupo” is what Italian actors use when Americans would say “break a leg”, (wishing a colleague well before performance — in the topsy-turvy world of theatre — with “good luck” would be bad luck.) Translated, the Italian phrase means “into the mouth of the wolf”, which is to say “go for it, risk everything, there’s nothing to lose on stage but your self-consciousness.” In some traditions, what you say in return is “taglia la gola” or “slit its throat”, a rather earthy Italian version of “knock ‘em dead”. In other words, performing is an act of courage, you’ve got to give it all you’ve got, overcome fear and shyness, transcend the ego, and become as great as you know you are. That is exactly what this course is about, so the name fits.

While no day is “typical” during In Bocca al Lupo, June 18th might look like this:

• 8:00 a.m. - warmup and conditioning
• 9:00 a.m. - brush up Italian class
• 1:00 p.m. - lunch at the villa
• 3:00 p.m. - stock characters with Andrea Brugnera
• 5:00 p.m. - acrobalance with Zuppa del Giorno
• 7:00 p.m. - a quick trip to Lago di Bolsena for a swim and gelato
• 9:00 p.m. - dinner in Montefiascone
• 11:30 p.m. - a silent stroll through the magical town of Civita di Bagnoreggio

After three weeks, students present two performances of an improvised play based on a scenario they have created themselves, in Italian and before an Italian-speaking audience. It seems like an impossible feat, then they do it; and they do it brilliantly every time.

The first week (Italian intensive, plus orientation and commedia overview) will take place in the ancient hill town of Orvieto, a city of 6,000 situated on the A1 autostrada and the main rail line about half way between Florence and Rome.

Orvieto was “Velzna” to the Etruscans who founded it around about 800 B.C. When Rome began to expand into the Italian peninsula, most Etruscan cities (which shared no unifying political system) fell quickly to Roman rule. Velzna, however, held out, and the Romans, persistent themselves and respectful of persistence in others, spared the population when the city finally fell, but with one condition; it had to quit the town. The war over, and the need for a fortified hilltop diminished by universal Roman rule, Velznians resettled on the shore of a nearby lake and brought the name of their former residence with them. That town is now known as Bolsena, and it doesn’t take much imagination to understand how “Velzna” became “Bolsena”.

Later, the citizens of Bolsena moved back to their old city, or “Urbus Vetto” and rebuilt. Today, Orvieto, sits on a honeycomb made of the tunnels, drains and storage rooms that its various inhabitants have carved into its tabletop plateau over the last 3,000 years. It is steeped in history and thoroughly modern at the same time.
The final two weeks of the course will be hosted by Teatro Boni in Aquapendente, the same distance to the west of Bolsena as Orvieto is to the east. Aquapendente is a town slightly larger than Orvieto located on Via Francignena, the Roman road that has connected Rome, Siena and Florence for centuries. It is a lovely, relaxed Lazian town, with an easy trip to Pitigliano, Pienza, Siena, and other enchanting cities. There are no two cities more perfect than Orvieto and Aquapendente for getting to know Italy from the inside.

The culminating performances will be held in Teato Boni and Teatro Molino (in Orveito) in buildings that were already ancient when commedia troupes wandered the length and breadth of Europe, inspiring Shakespeare and Moliere, and spreading news and fashion like an Internet of its day.

To call In Bocca al Lupo an experience of a lifetime, although it may seem a bit cliché, is actually an understatement. It changes you. You never forget the days you spend in Italy or the performances you do there, and you never entirely lose touch with the friends you make. It is to immerse yourself in another culture, to do something you never dreamt possible, to grow and open up as a human being, to live with great civility, to dine excellently, and to be a part of a community that takes itself so for granted that the idea of community is rarely discussed. That’s only some of what you will take with you from In Bocca al Lupo.

If you’re an actor — and you don’t have to be one to take this course — you will also take away a new understanding of comedy, increased physical agility and control, a deeper knowledge of how to tell a story, a better sense of the role that words play in live theatre, a stronger ability to listen, and a more natural tendency to respond to what is going on around you.

Registration for In Bocca al Lupo is now open and will continue until the March 17, 2008 deadline. You may register online at www.thenortheasttheatre.us by placing a deposit of $900. The full course fee (towards which the deposit is applied) is €2,595, payable in dollars by April 30, 2008. The fee includes all classes and performances, lodging with breakfast, use of a rental car, welcome and farewell meals, two group meals at spectacular restaurants, two private dinner parties with students from LinguaSi and Italian friends, orientations and city tours, two theatre outings (at least one of those in Rome), registration fees, selected study materials, excursions, local travel advise, and more.

In Bocca al Lupo is more than a course, more than a vacation, more than a travel experience. It is to imagine the impossible, then do it. In bocca al lupo, (taglia la gola)!

About Zuppa del Giorno

In September of 2002, six people gathered in a large room (an auditorium, converted from a basketball court, converted from an airplane hangar) with the intention of making something from nothing — a stone soup theatre experiment. They began with what they had in their pockets: theatre sports, stage combat, clowning, acrobatics, various degrees in theatre, and a big book of collected commedia dell’arte scenarios. From that grew a permanent troupe that experiments, creates, dares, and performs original shows crafted from the most lively of theatrical traditions, and as seen through contemporary eyes.

The group is Zuppa del Giorno: “The Soup of the Day.”

An integral part of The Northeast Theatre, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Zuppa del Giorno commandeers TNT’s stage once each season to debut its new creation.

That founding year, they explored the commedia dell’arte tradition in depth, and delivered up a riotous production in the spirit, if not the form, of traditional commedia, called Noble Aspirations. In Noble Aspirations they created the inhabitants of a Felliniesque small Italian town invaded by a menagerie of eccentric tourists, all of them in search of a fabled “Marchese,” a noble who could fulfill each of their most cherished dreams. The four actors portrayed a cast of eleven distinctive, active characters, all ensnared in the same delusion. The play was performed without benefit of a script, and included numerous opportunities for audience interaction. Noble Aspirations set the comic bar that Zuppa del Giorno continues to leap, year after year.

Next, the troupe tackled a somewhat different comic tradition with Legal Snarls, or, Groucho for the Defense, a farce inspired by the Marx Brothers with an original script by Steve Deighan. In it, the famous brothers (along with, of course, a pair of ingénues, a dastardly villain and his eccentric assistant, and a whole host of other hilarious types) attempt to save the Very Lower East Side Home for Orphans, Waifs and Foundlings from certain foreclosure. In doing so, they create as much chaos as possible. Zuppa del Giorno maintained its traditions of acrobatics, improvisation and audience interaction in this milieu, all the while taking advantage of classic devices like slamming doors, rolling furniture, and actual written dialogue. Legal Snarls honed madcap mayhem into finely tuned comedy, and left its audiences hungry for another serving of Zuppa.

Zuppa del Giorno’s creation for 2005 dispensed with dialogue altogether, as it took inspiration from the era of silent film for its homage piece: Silent Lives. In an abandoned hotel in Scranton, three friends awake from an eighty year sleep to discover themselves incapable of speech. Backed by a live band and projected placards, images, and film clips, they recall and relive their lives to a score of music from the 1920’s and 30’s. Characters from silent film visit and inhabit them, and they are filled with images of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Mabel Normand, Lon Chaney, and many more. By far its most physically exacting and demanding creation, Silent Lives allowed the troupe to articulate the most hysterical and sublime emotions with nothing but movement, often while hanging from a scaffold, falling from ladders or fighting with swords … well, with canes. Silent Lives is made from basic elements, communicable to every audience, regardless of language differences and, best of all, it’s funny and sweetly sad.

In May 2006, Zuppa del Giorno developed Operation Opera in three frantic weeks, and from scratch. The result was a full length farce that employed music, outlandish costumes and a plot reminiscent of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python. It reflected the absurdly real in all of us, using language, physical and verbal, that is both ages old and freshly funny.

In June and July 2006, Zuppa took its talents to Orvieto, Italy, where is conducted a three week course (in conjunction with LinguaSi Istituto di Lingua e Cultura Italiana) in Italian and commedia dell’arte. Eight students ranging in age from 16 to 62 studied language and comic technique for three weeks, then presented an improvised play based on a scenario they helped create, in Italian and to an Italian audience. The course (and the performances) were a huge success, and Zuppa will be offering the course again in the summer of 2008.

During the summer of 2007, Zuppa returned to Italy, this time not to teach, but to learn. They took workshops with Andrea Brugnera, and made contacts with Italian theatre folk from all areas of the profession. They have been invited to collaborate with Signor Brugnera in the spring of 2008, and will be bringing him to Scranton in April to present his outrageously funny one man versions of epic films. With Signor Brugnera, they have plans to create Clown Romeo and Juliet for the 2008-09 season at The Northeast Theatre.