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Willem Dafoe Named Artistic Director of Venice Biennale Theater Department: “I Am a Stage Animal”

"I realize that I am known as a film actor, but I was born in the theater, the theater trained me and galvanized me," says the star.

I can’t wait, like everyone else, to be a spectator at the festival he will build as artistic director and — from his lectern as an absolute maestro — to watch the young men and women of the Theater College grow in their art.” “But he began his most important theater training in New York, where together with director Elizabeth LeCompte and actors Ron Vawter, Kate Valk, Jim Clayburgh and Peyton Smith, he co-founded The Wooster Group, with which he would perform on stage for over 20 years (1977-2003), participating in many of the productions, which featured a singular blend of languages and texts — from the classics to American counterculture, from Flaubert to Lenny Bruce — that made it the fulcrum of the underground scene in 1980s New York, establishing collaborations with many artists: Ken Kobland, Jim Strahs, Richard Foreman, Trisha Brown, John Lurie, Bruce Odland, Steve Buscemi, Jennifer Tipton, Frances McDormand, Hans Peter Kuhn, Amir ElSaffar,” the Biennale said. Since 1998, it has been programmed yearly, including by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (1998-2002), Peter Sellars (2003), Massimo Castri (2004), Romeo Castellucci (2005), Maurizio Scaparro (2006-2009), Álex Rigola (2010-2016), Antonio Latella (2017-2020), and Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte (2021-2024).

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