Tonight We Improvise

(Questa sera si recita a soggetto, 1929)

by Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)

Translated by J. Douglas Campbell and Leonard G. Sbrocchi

Directed by Elfin Frederick Vogel

Music Director: Daryl Curry

March 1, 2004

Harold M. Proshansky Auditorium

CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NYC

Read the program.

Synopsis: In this play within a play, Dr. Hinkfuss, an experimental theatre director, instructs a company of actors to improvise a tale of murderous jealousy that takes place in a provincial Sicilian town. When his will collides with the impulses of actors immersed in their parts, he is thrown out of the theatre. First produced in January 1930 in Königsberg, Germany, this metatheatrical piece still fascinates us today in its exploration of the frequently contradictory nature of the roles played by playwright, text, actor, character, director, designer, and audience within a theatrical event.

This English translation of Tonight We Improvise was published, by kind permission of the Marta Abba Estate, in 20th Century Italian Drama: The First 50 Years, An Anthology, edited by Jane House and Antonio Attisani (Columbia University Press, 1995).