Actor, author, activist. He has brought to the stage the golden age of Jack London, the fearless love of Don Milani, wolves, shipwrecks, forests and wild stories. Especially wild stories.
He trained in nature first in projects of conservation and narration of places then in the context of a long research path that took place between different theaters and the Torre Guaceto Nature Reserve, in Puglia. From this place and this experience came meetings, training, original experiments always in symbiosis between theater, visual arts and care of natural places.
From his research were born shows, events of poetic crossing of places, public art projects, festivals, publications, projects of participatory forestation.
Among his numerous collaborations is that with Francesco Niccolini. The two authors share a way of making theatre and books for children and young people that binds them in their relationship with art and the earth and has led them to produce six award-winning narratives among the best works of Italian children’s theatre in recent years: “Storia d’amore e alberi”, “La Grande Foresta”, “Aspettando il vento”, “Il giardino delle Magie”, “Zanna Bianca”, “Tarzan ragazzo selvaggio” are the fruit of this understanding.
Together they won the Eolo Award with “La Grande Foresta” (Best New Entry 2013) and “Zanna Bianca” (Best Show 2019) and the Festebà Festival in Ferrara three times (2011, 2013, 2019). The illustrated book “Aspettando il vento” (Becco Giallo 2014) based on the show of the same name was a finalist for the Andersen Prize for Children’s Literature. In 2019 Mondadori published “Il lupo e la farfalla”, a novel by Francesco Niccolini based on the show “La Grande Foresta”. They have narrated in Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Chile, in Italian and Spanish.
In 2016 they created the narration for an adult audience “Cammelli a Barbiana”, about the experience of Don Milani’s Barbiana school and the show was broadcast live nationally on Radio Rai 3 on 26 June 2017 on the occasion of the death of the prior of Barbiana. The show gave birth in 2023 to the biography, also for Mondadori, “La scuola più bella che c’è” written by the two authors together with Sandra Gesualdi, researcher, journalist and vice President of the Don Milani Foundation. Also in 2023, the show received the Critics’ Award at the Palio Ermo Colle, Parma.
In 2019, Cuepress published “Della natura selvaggia-Il Teatro nel bosco di Luigi D’Elia e Francesco Niccolini”, a multi-authored anthology dedicated to the research on the story of nature by the two authors.
Their latest work together is “Caravaggio. Di chiaro e di oscuro” directed by Enzo Vetrano and Stefano Randisi, produced by Mesagne Capitale Cultura di Puglia 2023 and Teatri di Bari. Before this, they had worked on “Moby Dick” from the novel by Herman Mellville, an Arca Azzurra Produzioni production directed by Emanuele Gamba.
He is the builder of the stage props for all his shows and has exhibited his works in numerous solo and group shows. With Antonio Catalano he built “Il popolo del mare” in 2010, assembling the fragments that washed up on the seashore during a winter in the Torre Guaceto Reserve. In 2012 he recovered, cleaned, selected and stacked the wooden parts of the Albanian patrol boat Kater I Rades that sank in the Strait of Otranto during the Good Friday massacre. With these he created the scene for the show “Kater I Rades, secondo movimento” in 2014.
He has always studied and researched the themes of the free encounter between nature and childhood and has worked for over fifteen years on projects with children, teenagers and trainers.
He is the promoter and coordinator of a Teachers’ Table on the different languages ​​for environmental education. From his shows he gave birth to the participatory forestry project
“A forest in paradise” currently active with two forests that grow with the collaboration of local communities. The company that develops his research today is called INTI and bears the name of the God of the Sun of the Inca people.
The latest productions as author and performer were the show for an adult audience “Cinque racconti di fine estate”, a neorealist and magical portrait of the people of the Salento countryside, together with the musical group Bevano Est directed by Simonetta Dellomonaoco, and “La luna e i falò-Time never dies”, an original rewriting by D’Elia himself of the novel “La luna e i falò” by Cesare Pavese directed by Roberto Aldorasi and in collaboration with the Fondazione Cesare Pavese and Archétipo.
Since 2022 he has been the interpreter of the successful show “E la felicità, prof?”, his second personal theatrical chapter dedicated to the world of school, a Teatri di Bari production from the Einaudi book of the same name by Giancarlo Visitilli, directed by Visitilli himself and Riccardo Spagnulo.
Over the years, he has been the artistic director of numerous cultural projects and of the enhancement of the environmental and anthropological matrices of the territory. Lastly, he collaborated as an artistic consultant in writing the project “Umana Meraviglia”, a finalist for the Municipality of Mesagne as Italian Capital of Culture 2024.
In 2023, he received an official recognition from Giuseppe Marchionna, mayor of his hometown, for his “precious” commitment to the worlds of civil theater.

https://www.luigidelia.it/