Humberto ORSINI
Born in 1926, Humberto Orsini, is a renowned Venezuelan playwright. Showing an early interest in theatre, he started theatre training in 1950 for two years before joining the theatre group Cuicas, founded by Gilberto Pinto. In 1953, with participants in the dramaturgy class of Cesar Rengifo and other artist friends, he founded the theatre group Máscaras, a pioneer theatre company dedicated to popular theatre in Venezuela, which for a decade (1953-1963) traveled the country staging Venezuelan and international works with social overtones, in hospitals, prisons and colleges.
At that time, Orsini was working in an oil company, the Creole Petroleum Corporation, during the day and was making theatre at night and on weekends. In 1958 however, he resigned from his job to devote his time exclusively to theater and began a six-month long journey around Europe and the United States. He went to theatres, visited theatre training schools, and tried to meet influential theatre directors of that time. On his return, he began an aesthetic revolution in Máscaras and other theater companies. He directed famous works such as The Diary of Anne Frank, The Bald Soprano and The Other Story of Hamlet.
Orsini is the founder and the first director of "Teatro Estudio 67", with which he staged many works in the 60s. And after his stay in Europe from 1969 to 1975, he founded the group "Tabla Redonda" with which he directed his later shows. He also directed the theater company Sindicato del Centro Simón Bolívar and El Hogar Canario Venezolano (1985 1992), Centro del Portugués (1985-2000), and the Teatro Experimental de Arquitectura (1961, 1964, 1976)
In 1959, at the First Venezuelan Theatre Festival, was created the Venezuelan Federation of Theatre, with Humberto Orsini elected first as vice president, and then president in 1960. As the Federation was attached to the Venezuelan Centre of the International Theatre Institute ITI, he also became president of this Center. In 1965 he was appointed member of the Executive Council of ITI and a few months later – vice president of ITI. Orsini has further served as chairman of the Committee for Cultural Identity and Development and member of the Committee for Theater Education.
Humberto Orsini has received numerous awards and honors from various cultural and educational institutions in Venezuela, including the National Prize for Theatre in 1995.