Maria Cassi
More than Florentine by birth, she is from Fiesole and a nomad in spirit. She has entertained audiences in Los Angeles, New York, Prague, Amsterdam, Bucharest, Tokyo and Paris, which is a bit of a second home for her. Some of her teachers and sources of inspiration are French: the actor Jacques Lecoq, the clown Pierre Byland and Jacques Tati. The French audience is also one of the most fascinated and enchanted by Maria: in 2009, the show “Crepapelle” at the Théâtre du Rond Point in Paris became a case, Le Monde dedicated two special features to it and Le Figaro included it among the top two greatest successes of the theatre season in Paris.
“Crepapelle”, written and performed by Maria, reaches the Carrie Hamilton Theatre – Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles, after Peter Schneider, a Disney producer, sees it for the first time at the Teatro del Sale. The meeting between him and Maria then gives life to a new creation, a sort of anthology of all the characters, masks and clowns played by the actress up to that point. “My life with men and other animals”, directed by Schneider himself and of which Maria Cassi is an interpreter and co-author, together with Patrick Pacheco, goes on stage in March 2012 in New York and definitively sanctions the international success of the Florentine artist.
Leonardo Brizzi
A musician with a classical and jazz background, refined and cultured, Leonardo Brizzi is at the same time endowed with a strong theatrical and humorous sense, which places him among the leaders and founders of the genre of music on stage, in comic theater. A school that has “theatricalized music”, making musicians real actors, protagonists of comedy.
In 1986 he founded the Compagnia Aringa e Verdurini with Maria Cassi: in 20 years of work they have carried out research on comic and musical theater that has led them to interact with audiences and cultures from all over the world.
Leonardo Brizzi has researched and created collaborations with permanent theaters such as the Teatro di Rifredi in Florence, the Fondazione Teatro Metastasio in Prato, the Granbadò in Turin, the Giacosa in Ivrea and with the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto. Among his colleagues there are artists such as Maria Cassi, Sergio Staino, the musicians of Banda Osiris, Bustric, directors and actors such as Sergio Aguirre and Manola Nifosì, Gabriele Vacis, the actor Marco Zannoni, the actress Daniela Morozzi, he has collaborated with Bolek Polivka, Yves Le Breton, Dimitri. A musician with an international scope, he has given traces of his musical work in many European and world tours and workshops in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Holland up to Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and the United States. He is a music teacher and instructor. He holds courses, lectures, workshops and internships at various training levels.
