Paolo Valerio

Since 2021, Paolo Valerio has been the Director of the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia. He is a director, actor, and playwright. Previously, he served as Artistic Director of the Teatro Stabile di Verona – Centro di Produzione Teatrale (from 1994) and for ten years as Director of the GAT Triveneto Circuit. Since 1996, he has taught directing at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Verona.

Valerio graduated in Humanities from the University of Venice in 1984 with a thesis on film history (“The Actor’s Studio and A Streetcar Named Desire”) and the following year graduated from the Teatro del Piccolo School in Milan. He furthered his training through workshops with Jerzy Grotowski in 1986–87.

As an actor in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he worked with directors including Massimo Navone, Gino Zampieri, Gianfranco de Bosio, and Elio De Capitani. In 1989, he debuted as a director with an itinerant Romeo and Juliet in Verona, which continues to be staged every summer and is the second-longest-running show after the Aida of 1913.

Recent productions include Sior Todero Brontolon by Carlo Goldoni with Franco Branciaroli (Verona Summer Festival 2024), Il Vetro della Clessidra by Claudio Magris with Alessio Boni and Chiara Trentin (Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trieste, October 2024; bilingual version presented in Frankfurt at the 2024 Buchmesse), and La Coscienza di Zeno by Italo Svevo with Alessandro Haber (Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia, 2023), co-adapted with Monica Codena.

For the 70th anniversary of the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia and the reunification of Trieste with Italy (1954–1924), he directed Trieste 1954 with Simone Cristicchi and the Teatro Lirico G. Verdi orchestra and 26 Ottobre – Un Mare di Ombrelli, a radio drama by Gianni Gori, staged live and broadcast by RAI FVG.

In opera, he directed Amleto by Franco Faccio (2023) and Falstaff ossia Le tre burle by Antonio Salieri (January 2025) at Teatro Filarmonico di Verona. Other notable productions include Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (2022), Goldoni’s La Bottega del Caffé (2021), and Jezabel by Irène Némirovsky (2019).

He has directed and performed in numerous plays, including Il Deserto dei Tartari (2016), Le ho mai raccontato del vento del Nord (2015, 2018), Poema a fumetti (2012), Histoire du Soldat (2002), and Amleto (1992). He first combined directing and performing in 1992 with La Fabbrica dei Sogni, inspired by Bohumil Hrabal.

Valerio has received several awards, including the ETI Prize for La Fabbrica dei Sogni and the Persefone Prize (2005) for his contributions to theatre.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he created three streamed productions for Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia: Trieste e la Memoria, Ricordare – Portare al Cuore, and Vien Dietro a Me (Dante anniversary).

Since summer 2021, he has curated the open-air festival Il Rossetti a Miramare in Trieste, presenting site-specific shows like Shakespeare in the Park (2021–22), Green Shakespeare: Trees, Storms, Flowers and the Moon (2023), and Discorsi Amorosi (2024), featuring Stefania Rocca and guest actors.

In 2023, he created the video Natura io ti ringrazio – Il mio Carso è duro e buono, blending poetry and dance, and staged the conference-show I Moti del 53 with historians and actors commemorating Trieste. In October 2024, he collaborated with the University of Trieste for Focus Goldoniano, a multidisciplinary program dedicated to Carlo Goldoni, presented alongside his production of Sior Todero Brontolon.