with James Edwards, piano

 

with Maria Cassi

written by Maria Cassi and Patrick Pacheco

directed by Peter Schneider

 

scenery and video by Lucio Diana

project Change Performing Arts, Red Shoes Entertainment and Teatro del Sale
executive production CRT Artificio
 

My life with men... and other animals, offers viewers a hilarious crash course on love, seduction, death ... and olive oil! The show - part Italian and part English - overturns the notion that Americans have of Italian romance and femininity, demystifying the archetypes created by films, television and stars like Gina Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren. The consolidated myths explode and - with the help of projections and images - a seductive and magical world emerges, partly anchored to a sharp reality and partly projected into a surreal and clownish imagination.

Maria Cassi makes her Spoleto Festival début with the world première of My Life with men... and other animals, that she wrote with Patrick Pacheco. In a recent enthusiastic review, Le Monde calls her "a clown without the red nose." Thanks to his classical training and then years of research into musical and comical drama, in her long career she has often been compared to Chaplin, Jerry Lewis and Jacques Tati.

Peter Schneider, Tony Award for production of the musical The Lion King, directs an Italian actress for the first time. He has recently directed Sister Act, successful musical in London, after having left the Board of the Disney Film Studios, where he was responsible for creating hits like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The King lion. He produced the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty which tells how things really went in those years which will be presented at the Festival di Spoleto

Patrick Pacheco is an award-winning journalist and biographer who writes for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and also for theater and cinema. He recently collaborated on the musical Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life and on the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty.