Martinelli Marco

Marco Martinelli (Reggio Emilia, 14 August 1956) is an Italian playwright and theatre director. In 1977, he married Ermanna Montanari and together they founded the Teatro delle Albe in Ravenna in 1983. Here, Martinelli developed a style of theatre characterised by intense physicality and elementary narrative, aiming for a “mixed and inter-ethnic” fusion with African influences, inspired by the Commedia dell’arte and Dario Fo.
In 1991, he was appointed artistic director of Ravenna Teatro, winning the Ubu Prize for his commitment and linguistic research in 1996. He is also co-founder of the non-school Teatro delle Albe, a theatre workshop for high school students active since 1991. He has directed operas such as La locandiera (1997) and Lucrezia Borgia (2001). In 2007, he founded Punta Corsara in Scampia.
His main theatrical works include:
All’inferno! (1996), for which he won the Ubu Prize for dramaturgy in 1997.
I polacchi (1999), a clownish reinterpretation of Alfred Jarry, for which he received the 2003 MESS Prize for best director.
Rumore di acque (2010). He embarked on an important journey through the Divine Comedy, produced by Ravenna Festival, with Inferno (2017) and Il purgatorio dei poeti (2022), receiving a Ubu Prize in 2017 for the curatorial project of Inferno.
His film debut was with Vita agli arresti di Aung San Suu Kyi (2017), followed by The Sky over Kibera (2019), a medium-length film shot in the slums of Kibera, Kenya, with the participation of 150 children and teenagers and inspired by the Divine Comedy. In 2020, he directed Er, a film that traces the career of Ermanna Montanari.
Martinelli has published numerous plays, including Jarry 2000 (2000), Farsi luogo (2015), translated into several languages, and the recent essay Coro (2023), dedicated to the theme of choral theatre. He has received numerous awards, including several Ubu Prizes for playwriting, directing and special projects.