Pierrot, a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte, has his origins in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a diminutive of Pierre (Peter), using the suffix -ot and derives from the Italian Pedrolino. His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbine. Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with a frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim and, more rarely, with a conical shape like a dunce's cap.
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was an Italian film actor. He is generally regarded one of Italy's most iconic male performers of the 20th-century, who played leading roles for many of the country's top directors, in a career spanning 147 films between 1939 and 1996, garnering many international honours including two BAFTA Awards, two Best Actor awards at the Venice and Cannes film festivals, two Golden Globes, and three Academy Award nominations.
Catherine Anahid Berberian was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henri Pousseur, Sylvano Bussotti, Darius Milhaud, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, and Igor Stravinsky. She also interpreted works by Claudio Monteverdi, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Kurt Weill, Philipp zu Eulenburg and others. As a recital curator, she presented several vocal genres in a classical context, including arrangements of songs by The Beatles by Louis Andriessen as well as folk songs from several countries and cultures. As a composer, she wrote Stripsody (1966), in which she exploits her vocal technique using comic book sounds (onomatopoeia), and Morsicat(h)y (1969), a composition for the keyboard based on Morse code.
Isabella Andreini, also known as Isabella Da Padova, was an Italian actress and writer. Andreini was a member of the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi, a touring theatre company that performed in Italy and France. The role of Isabella of the commedia dell'arte was named after her.
Jacques Lecoq was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999.
Katherine Dee Strickland is an American actress. From 2007 to 2013, she played Charlotte King on the ABC drama Private Practice.
Chiara Charlotte Mastroianni is a French actress and singer. She is the daughter of actors Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.
Paulette Randall, MBE is a British theatre director of Jamaican descent. She was chair of the board of Clean Break Theatre Company in 2006–07, and is former artistic director of Talawa Theatre Company. She was the associate director for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.
The Servant of Two Masters is a comedy by the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni written in 1746. Goldoni originally wrote the play at the request of actor Antonio Sacco, one of the great Harlequins in history. His earliest drafts had large sections that were reserved for improvisation, but he revised it in 1789 in the version that exists today. The play draws on the tradition of the earlier Italian commedia dell'arte.
Comédie-Italienne or Théâtre-Italien are French names which have been used to refer to Italian-language theatre and opera when performed in France.
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής (hupokritḗs), literally "one who answers". The actor's interpretation of a role—the art of acting—pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. This can also be considered an "actor's role", which was called this due to scrolls being used in the theaters. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is "playing themselves", as in some forms of experimental performance art.
Vittoria Piisimi, was an Italian actress, singer, dancer, theatre director and musician. Known as la divina Vittoria Piisimi, she was one of the most famous Italian actors of the period. She and Isabella Andreini were the two most famed actresses of the era, and described as great rivals.
Claire Louise Rushbrook is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Roxanne in the film Secrets & Lies (1996), and for playing Linda Earl-Bouchtat in My Mad Fat Diary (2013–2015).
Peter Strickland is a British film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his films Berberian Sound Studio (2012), The Duke of Burgundy (2014) and In Fabric (2018).
Berberian Sound Studio is a 2012 British psychological horror film. It is the second feature film by British director and screenwriter Peter Strickland. The film, which stars Toby Jones, is set in a 1970s Italian horror film studio.
The Duke of Burgundy is a 2014 British erotic romance drama film written and directed by Peter Strickland, and starring Sidse Babett Knudsen as Cynthia and Chiara D'Anna as Evelyn.
Eugenia Caruso is an Italian actress and screenwriter.
Chiara Valerio is an Italian author and essayist.
Fatma Mohamed is a Romanian actress known for her appearances in all five of director Peter Strickland's feature films, namely Katalin Varga, Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy, In Fabric and Flux Gourmet.
Amy Jump is a British screenwriter, film editor and film producer. She is best known for writing and editing such films as Kill List (2011), A Field in England (2013) and High-Rise (2015). She and her husband, director Ben Wheatley, have been described as "one of the most formidable creative partnerships in film". Jump won a British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay for both Kill List and Sightseers (2012).
