top of page

Compagnia de' Colombari’s 20th Anniversary Season

In 2024, Compagnia de' Colombari celebrates 20 years of reimagining classic texts and generating spectacle accessibly in surprising places! Colombari was born in 2004 in Orvieto, Italy, where the company re-imagined the medieval mystery plays and performed them in the streets and piazzas. Having revitalized the tradition of theater during Orvieto's annual Corpus Christi Festival, the company launched a parallel theatrical experience in its home base of New York City called Strangers and Other Angels (currently in development for a return to Orvieto in 2025). Since then, for two decades, the ever-expanding international company of actors and collaborators has created and performed extraordinary productions adapted and directed by Karin Coonrod across the USA and around the world. Please stay tuned for the exciting offerings on tour and in development for our 20th anniversary season!

Compagnia de’ Colombari’s KING LEAR, adapted and directed by Karin Coonrod, is a primal, physical and potent immersive “paper crown” Lear that strips the Shakespearian classic to its essence. Coonrod utilizes her signature “multiplicity” to shift and deepen audiences’ connection with the characters. Ten diverse actors ranging in age and gender all embody King Lear at the beginning and conduct a radical take-over of the text and the space.

 

Their unity fragments as they tear off their paper crowns and transform into other roles, competing for influence and diminishing the legion of Lears by their existence. Through a vigorous exploration of the characters’ egos, motivations, and power dynamics, the actors dig deep into the internal and external voyage of a stubborn, fractured soul who must lose everything to find himself. Transformation takes place in the apocalypse. Coonrod’s production commands us to, as Kent says to King Lear, “See better.”

 

Colombari's KING LEAR debuts Off-Broadway in New York City for a limited run of four performances, July 12-14, 2024, at La MaMa ETC (66 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003). Tickets are available HERE for $45 ($25 student tickets are available). Opening Night is Friday, July 12, at 7 p.m., with performances at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, July 13 and 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 14. 

The world premiere of Colombari's KING LEAR debuted June 14-16, 2024, at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, CT. 

King Lear photography and poster design by Shin Kurokawa. Graphic by Zach Stanik

ETRMC_Rome.jpg

From a story by Flannery O'Connor adapted and created for the stage by Karin Coonrod, Everything That Rises Must Converge is a tragic-comic interracial seat-shifting dance between Blacks and whites on a bus in America's deep South. Speaking and performing the original text verbatim, eight actors morph into the various characters from O’Connor’s 1961 story about how all lives (classes, races, and religions) eventually have to intersect. Georgia's red earth is slammed up against the eternal and O'Connor's voice is embodied through a company of performers who carry the power of this apocalyptic comedy directly into the audience.

 

EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE THEATRICAL TOUR FALL 2024

Rome, ITALY - Power of the Word Conference 

September 18 and 19 at 7PM (19:00)

La Sapienza University

Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy

(presso la cripta della Cappella della Divina Sapienza)

September 20 and 21*at 7PM (19:00)

The Oratory of San Francesco Saverio del Caravita

(near Sant'Ignazio Church)

7, via del Caravita, 00186 Rome, Italy

USA TOUR:

Houston, TX - October 1 & 2 at 7pm at the Jones Hall Auditorium at the University of St. Thomas (FREE admission, RSVP HERE). Visit flanneryinhouston.org for more information.

Bedford Hills, NY - October 8 at Taconic Correctional Facility

Belmont, NC - October 10 at 8pm at the Belmont Abbey College Haid Theatre (FREE admission, RSVP HERE)

Bronx, NYC - October 12 at Bronx Community Reentry Center

Brooklyn, NYC - October 13 at St. Paul's Church. Doors at 5:30pm, show at 6pm, 7pm party ($25 tickets are available HERE)

©2024 Mikołaj Cempla, HumanStories.studio

Whitman on Walls! (WoW!) is a hybrid event that brings living poets and Colombari performers on film together to explore Walt Whitman's iconic words and uncover what democracy and community mean to artists and poets today. It's a drive-in movie meets poetry slam! 

 

In response to the host of performance cancellations in 2020, Compagnia de' Colombari turned Karin Coonrod’s original production of MORE OR LESS I AM into short films. Working with Whitman's iconic poem, "Song of Myself," Colombari created seven short films with actors and musicians around the globe, bringing Whitman’s words to life in startling and beautiful new ways intermixed with live responses from local poets and performers. Colombari plans to tour WoW! in all 50 states of the USA by 2026 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. 

Whitman on Walls (WoW!) Tour Dates:  

March 25, 2024 - SUNY Stonybrook in Stony Brook, NY 

May 5, 2024 - WoW! Harlem at Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park Robert Frederick Smith Center for Performing Arts (679 Riverside Drive at 145th Street in Harlem) on May 5 at 6:30p.m. RSVP HERE
September 25-29, 2024 - Santa Fe, NM. For tickets and program information, visit HERE

October 26, 2024 - St. John's University, Queens, NYC

Whitman on Walls! (WoW!) design created by Kyle Morrissey of White Bicycle

  • Instagram_black
  • Facebook_black
  • Twitter_black
  • Youtube_black
bottom of page