Pietro Bartolini

Biography

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Professional actor

Pietro Bartolini began his career very young, graduating from the Bottega Teatrale di Firenze directed by Vittorio Gassman (1984). He then attended Orazio Costa’s school, where he also worked as an assistant and drama teacher. For many years he worked as a professional actor in lead roles with renowned theatre companies throughout Europe, with Vittorio Gassman, Gabriele Lavia (in «Hamlet» and«The Devil and the Good Lord»), Peter Stein (in «Titus Andronicus»), Mariangela Melato (in «Medea» in the role of Creon – DVD published by Fabbri Editori in 2008), with Giancarlo Sepe («Happy Birthday Beckett» ), Rossella Falk, Raf Vallone and many others. He has taken part in numerous TV productions and radio recordings (for RAI 2 he was the narrator’s voice for« Stories of Men and the Sea”), voice actor for festivals and concerts, with – among others – the Ensemble Homme Armé in Tuscany, directed by Fabio Lombardo, and in several editions of«Suoni Riflessi» directed by Mario Ancillotti.

Director

He has devoted himself to training young actors and directors, producing shows with his students and running theatre course for the Accademia Teatrale di Firenze, of which he is a founding partner. He teaches speech, acting, directing and also hold courses to train new drama teachers. For over a decade he taught at the Liceo Classico Galileo, the Liceo Classico Michelangelo and the Liceo Scientifico Gramsci in Florence. Since 1992, he has directed more than 400 end-of-the-year shows in Florence. As an author, he has published various works, including «Vasco Pratolini fra cinema e Teatro», which is the result of a friendship and collaboration with the writer Vasco Pratolini, and «Nero», a tragedy in fifteen scenes – edited by Prof. Giancarlo Quiriconi, professor of Modern Italian Literature at the Università di Chieti e Pescara, with whom Bartolini and his students produced CD recordings with the poets Piero Bigongiari and Mario Luzi (published by the Comune di Firenze -Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze). Bartolini is also the author of original plays and adaptations of classics:«Don Chisciotte» by M. De Cervantes, which toured the main theatres in Tuscany (the Pergola in Florence, 2002), «Fiaba» presented at the Festival of Radicondoli, «Festa Decadentista», a dinner with performance together with the renowned Florentine chef Giuseppe Alessi, «Perfetta Letizia» (Basilica of Santa Croce), «Chiara e Francesco» (Teatro della Pergola - 2014 - and Basilica of Santa Croce - 2015). He staged Ibsen’s opera «Peer Gynt» with music by Grieg, with the participation of over 270 artists – actors, dancers and singers – at the Pergola in Florence. His show «Bacco in Toscana» by Francesco Redi performed by young actors of the Accademia Teatrale di Firenze was selected by the Moscow Festival of Theatre Academies to be performed in the renowned Na Stastnom theatre, together with other leading European academies (2010). He directed the students of the Accademia Teatrale di Firenze in Goethe’s«Faust» at the Teatro della Pergola. In 2011 he directed the «theatrical pathway» , an overview of European theatre for the PREMIO GALILEO 2000 at the Teatro della Pergola (transmitted by RAI 5). His show «Angeli» on Giorgio La Pira, Don Gnocchi and Don Facibeni was staged at the Teatro Verdi in Florence (2011) to celebrate the opening of the new hospital complex«Don Gnocchi» at Torregalli. He directed the production «Maternità offesa» by Doretta Boretti at the Teatro della Pergola to commemorate the International Day of road victims. He produced the trilogy «Il teatro nel teatro» with adaptations of Luigi Pirandello’s «Sei Personaggi in cerca d'autore», «Ciascuno a suo modo» and «Questa sera si recita a soggetto» at the Teatro della Pergola (2012). Founder and director of META – the Meeting of European Theatre Academies, that has reached its sixth edition, bringing together leading European and International theatre academies at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence. For META he directed comedies inspired by Carlo Goldoni – «Goldoni» (2015) an adaptation of the works of Goldoni, Bon and Ferrari, and «Gli Innamorati» (2016) – Goethe’s «Faust» (2017), Corneille’s «L'Illusion comique» (2018), and Dante’s «Vita Nuova» (2019). In 2017 he directed his own play «Madre Quintilla» at the Teatro Niccolini and Rodolfo Doni’s «I folli» at the Cenacolo della Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. Since 2018 he has been teaching «Acting Dante's Inferno» at the Fondazione Zeffirelli-Museo in Florence, an Italian-language monographic acting course for American college students. During the Estate Fiorentina festival organized by the Comune di Firenze he staged «Enoch Arden», «Stories of Men and the Sea» (2017), and his own texts «L'Accademia Platonica» (The Platonic Academy) and «Andrea del Sarto il pittore senza errori» (Andrea del Sarto: the Painter without Mistakes – 2018-2019).

Expert in compositing, ENL, 2D/3D graphics, DAW, MIDI and VFX systems

As a film director he has produced several documentaries: on the painter «Telemaco Signorini», chosen for the opening of the Parco delle Cinque Terre; on the «Valle del Mensola» (the Mensola Valley) an environmental and historical documentary set in Florence; «Acqua Passata» a film with an original script based on the works of XIX-century Tuscan authors; on the Tuscan artist «Galileo Chini» presented at Salsomaggiore, at the Forte Belvedere in Florence, at the Museo Manifattura Chini in the Comune di Borgo S. Lorenzo, at «The Galileo Chini Exhibition» in Bangkok and at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna of Palazzo Pitti in Florence. He has produced a documentary on the Florentine avant-guardes at the beginning of the XX century «Papini, Soffici, Vallecchi», chosen and presented in Brussels (Belgium) together with his show «Collage Futurista» (Teatro dell'Istituto Italiano di Cultura). He launched the champion diver Tania Cagnotto as an actor in his documentary «Tania d'aria e d'acqua», produced by «Vegetal Progress» from Turin and presented for the first time at the international Sport & Movies festival in Milan in 2010, where it won the prizes “Menzione d’Onore» and the «Premio del Presidente della Repubblica Italiana» (Prize of the President of the Italian Republic).

Designer and constructor of stage settings and machinery

He has designed and built stage settings and machinery, including the «Teatrodilegno», an open-air theatre in use for more than ten years (until 2007) in the municipal gardens in the Area Pettini Burresi.

S.S.S.P. Professional Affiliate

In 2015, while exploring the potential of new technologies, he initiated the first application of Immersive Virtual Reality to teaching theatre and training actors in the performing arts, and started an innovative and groundbreaking research project together with the Laboratorio di Robotica Percettiva PERCRO - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa directed by Prof. Massimo Bergamasco, Dr Marcello Carrozzino and Dr Chiara Evangelista. Thanks to the expert technical support of Prof. Bergamasco and the PERCRO team, he has staged many plays and performances using new virtual environments. In the prestigious Sala d'Arme of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence he has produced:«Savonarola» by V. Arnone, «The Countess of Albany» and «Michelangelo» by V. Arnone – early demonstrations of immersive performances, selected by the Commisione della Regione for the «Festa della Toscana» (2017-2018-2019 editions) and staged thanks to the collaboration with the Laboratorio della Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa. He has also produced a multi-media performance of«Romeo and Juliet» for one spectator at a time inside the evocative «CAVE» of the Laboratorio del Sant'Anna di Pisa (2017). Since 2018 he is Professional Affiliate of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa and was a member of the scientific committee for Immersive Virtual Reality applied to teaching acting and the performing arts in the first and second edition of the «International Robotics Festival» organized by the University of Pisa and the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (2017-2018).