«The half-empty cave of La palestra, so that it can echo the cruelty of the story that will soon be told. The intertwining glances that precede the clash in Due donne che ballano. Or the screeching of Quasi grazia, through which Deledda’s voice returns. The throne placed in a bunker during the Pre-Amleto. Anna Della Rosa’s back, leaning on a chair, suggests that the Accabadora is exhausted. The finale of La Febbre, with Federica Fracassi becoming a mush of blood, guilt, and remorse.
Details, fragments of images that reveal a directorial vocation and the value of a poetics. For twenty years, she has employed text study, visual attention, and the restraint of her acting to also, and above all, make a human and civil discourse.
Starting from the outskirts of Rome, and relying solely on her own determination and skill, Veronica Cruciani has not only created necessary and precious performances. She has also created community workshops; she has taught the craft to young people; she has directed a theater in a neighborhood where people lack jobs and housing; she has founded a company. And she has always taken a stand against what was and is happening in this country. For the quality with which she understands and practices theater on a daily basis, for the political and intellectual coherence that distinguishes her, and for the cultural and creative independence she demonstrates every time, the Hystrio Award for Directing goes to Veronica Cruciani»
From the motivation for the 2022 Hystrio Award for Best Director
Curriculum
Veronica Cruciani is an Italian theatre director who lives and works between Rome and Milan.
After attending an Arts High School, she graduated from the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi in Milan. She later studied at the DAMS programme of Roma Tre University and completed a Master’s in Counselling with a transactional analysis focus, broadening her training: alongside theatre, film, music and dance, she has developed skills in psychological and relational fields.
She has built a career that weaves together directing, acting and pedagogy, keeping the actor, the spoken word and a direct relationship with the audience at the centre of her research. Her directing is marked by an ability to unite tradition and innovation, bringing classics to life for our time and tackling contemporary social and cultural issues with clarity and precision.
- 2024 – Premio della Critica ANCT, Miglior Regista
- 2022 – Premio Hystrio alla Regia per la carriera
- 2017 – Premio Vincenzo Cerami per PreAmleto
- 2012 – Premio Hystrio-ANCT
- 2008 – Premio della Critica ANCT – Miglior Testo Italiano per Il ritorno
- 2007 – Premio Calandra 2007 – Miglior Spettacolo per Ballare di lavoro
- 2003 – Premio Oddone Cappellino (Festival delle Colline Torinesi) per Le nozze di Antigone
Visual Arts
Veronica Cruciani develops research that connects theater, visual arts, and sound performance. Her education also stems from her art school, where she studied drawing and painting, elements that continue to influence her approach to space and composition.
Since 2015, she has worked continuously with visual and sound artist John Cascone. The Cascone/Cruciani collaboration has developed through performance and installation projects in which sound, language, and space become working materials.
In 2015, they collaborated on Dell’Immondo, presented at the Teatro Orologio in Rome as part of the Le Forme del Pathos festival. That same year, they presented Fuori di copione. La lingua è una materia at the Forum dell’Arte Contemporanea at Monash University in Prato, a project dedicated to the physical and sonic dimensions of the word.
In 2016, they created Alzheimer mon amour, produced by the Teatro di Roma with Muta Imago and presented at the Teatro India and the Teatro Biblioteca Quarticciolo. The work stems from a collection of memories created at the Marconi Senior Center.
In 2019, they presented La Palude, the inaugural sound performance at the Teatro India, constructed as an immersive acoustic environment.
In 2020, they created La setta (delle paesaggiste d’interno), a live performance on Zoom created during the lockdown, in which three actresses act from their homes, transforming the domestic space into a performative device. The work was subsequently selected by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center in New York for the Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance.
In 2022, they presented La Canzone di Henrik at the Museo Napoleonico in Rome for the Notte dei Musei (Night of the Museums), a performance and sound project dedicated to Henrik Ibsen, constructed through monologues distributed throughout the museum’s various rooms according to the song format.
Between 2022 and 2023 they developed L’Ignoto, Sconosciuto Altrove, a widespread project carried out between Monterotondo, Cave, Rome and Maranola, divided into workshops, meetings, performances and videos dedicated to the theme of the unknown in urban and natural contexts.
Actress
Veronica Cruciani began her theatre career as an actress. She trained at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi in Milan, where she worked on texts by authors such as Heiner Müller (Quartett, 1998) and started measuring herself against a demanding stage, grounded in discipline and research. In the late 1990s she worked with Italian and French companies – from Fassbinder’s *Opera des Gueux* with Zebre Teatre to *Storie di fine millennio* with La Contemporanea – and in the 2000s with the Teatro Stabile di Roma and Compagnia Katzmacher. A decisive turning point came with *Le nozze di Antigone* by Ascanio Celestini (2004), in which she was both co-director and performer: the production earned her a place as a finalist at the Ubu Awards for Best Actress Under 35.
«He is proving to be a true author, Ascanio Celestini, as well as a refined storyteller, a captivating voice of oral tales, and his texts prove they can fully withstand the test of the stage even when directed and performed by others: *Le nozze di Antigone*, entrusted to a young actress, Veronica Cruciani, who also staged it in collaboration with Arturo Cirillo, echoes the popular tone and typical narrative repetitions that are Celestini’s hallmark; to this, however, are added the incisive personality of the new performer and the fragmentary structure, punctuated by sharp, dry segments, which reflects a different but no less effective directorial approach.»
from *Antigone, sogno edipico* by Renato Palazzi
Acting coach
In 2014, she worked as an acting coach on the set of the film Un fidanzato per mia moglie, directed by Davide Marengo.
She also appeared in the film’s cast.
Pedagogue
- 2025 – Teatro Stabile del Veneto – Teatro Nazionale
Director of Martin Crimp’s The Rest Will Be Familiar to You from the Cinema, translated by Enrico Luttmann, based on Euripides’ The Phoenician Women. With the student actresses and actors of the Carlo Goldoni Theatre Academy. - 2024 – Teatro Stabile del Veneto – Teatro Nazionale
Director of Metamorphoses from Ovid, rewritten by Sami Ibrahim, with the acting students of the Carlo Goldoni Academy. - 2024–2023 – Accademia Carlo Goldoni, Teatro Stabile del Veneto
Acting teacher (3rd year). - 2022–2023 – Accademia dei Filodrammatici, Milan
Acting teacher for the Graduation Showcase. - 2021 – Fondazione Primoli, Rome
Acting and directing teacher – workshop Il teatro delle scrittrici contemporanee (contemporary English and French dramaturgy). - 2019 – Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi (AFAM)
Teacher for 3rd-year actors and 2nd-year dancers; director of Radio Clandestina from E. Morante (training project). - 2017–2018 – Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi (AFAM)
Teacher of the workshop Contemporary National and International Dramaturgy. - 2017 – Officina Pasolini – LAZIO DISU
Teacher of Critical Reading of Theatre Texts (2nd year) for actors and directors; director of the final production. - 2017 – Accademia Stap Brancaccio / Sala Umberto – Regione Lazio
Teacher of the workshop on Contemporary National and International Dramaturgy for young actors, directors and playwrights (2nd year). - 2016 – Officina Pasolini – LAZIO DISU
Teacher of Critical Reading of Theatre Texts (1st year) for actors and directors. - 2016 – Accademia Stap Brancaccio / Sala Umberto – Regione Lazio
Teacher of the workshop on Contemporary National and International Dramaturgy (1st year). - 2015 – Accademia teatrale Padiglione Ludvigh
Acting teacher – workshop for actors. - 2014 – ARCI / Municipality of Lampedusa / Comitato 3 Ottobre / Presidency of the Council of Ministers / RAI
Teacher of acting, playwriting and directing – workshop for professional and non-professional actors from different countries. - 2014 – Sabir Festival, Lampedusa
Workshop leader on Mediterranean cultural exchange. - 2014 – CTA – Sapienza University / PAV / Compagnia Veronica Cruciani
Director and teacher of acting, playwriting and directing in Peter Handke a Roma. Viaggio nella terra sonora. - 2014 – Teatro Piccolo Re di Roma
Teacher of the acting workshop New dramaturgy and the art of the actor. - 2013 – Teatro Nazionale di Roma / Teatro Quarticciolo / Teatro Tor Bella Monaca
Teacher of acting, playwriting and directing – training path Lo stile dell’emotività (The Style of Emotionality). - 2013 – University of Cosenza
Teacher of narrative theatre. - 2011 – Teatro Nazionale di Roma / Regione Lazio / Teatro Quarticciolo
Teacher and director of Le città invisibili (from Lotta di classe by Ascanio Celestini). - 2010 – Teatro Nazionale di Roma / Regione Lazio / Teatro Quarticciolo
Teacher and director of Città di parole by Alessandro Portelli. - 2010 – Teatro Stabile della Sardegna
Teacher, director and playwright in the training programme for company actors and young professionals. - 2010 – Principi Attivi – Regione Puglia
Teacher of acting and playwriting for narrative theatre – project Raccontare il reale (Telling the Real). - 2010 – Teatro Piccolo Re di Roma
Teacher and director of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by W. Shakespeare (workshop). - 2009 – Teatro Nazionale di Roma / Regione Lazio / Teatro Quarticciolo
Teacher and director of Nozze di Borgata (community theatre project). - 2009 – University of Cosenza
Teacher of narrative theatre. - 2007 – Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo
Teacher and director of La Malpensata – Cento metri per attraversare il mondo by Sergio Pierattini (workshop for professional and non-professional actors from different countries). - 2006 – Biblioteche di Roma / Middle School “Anna Frank”
Teacher of narrative theatre.
Artistic director
(2013-2019)
Teatro Biblioteca Quarticciolo (Municipality of Rome / Teatro di Roma)
«Being at Quarticciolo, for me, is first and foremost an act of commitment.
A theatre is not just the place where a season is presented, but a space where a community can
recognise itself, argue, and be moved together. Artistic direction, in this sense, is work in the
service of people: choosing shows means opening up possibilities, building ties between the
neighbourhood and the national scene, creating the conditions for something to happen, even
something unexpected.»
from Cosa può un teatro?
