Schegge
By and with Maria Cassi
“Schegge” are “splinters” from Cosmicomics by Italo. Calvino. Small bits of healthy laughter, chips of good-hearted humour, splinters of comic common sense. With her interpretation of “Furto in pasticceria by Calvino, who had already provided a source of inspiration for “I Soliti Ignoti”, Maria Cassi takes on herself the badge of mockery and humour at all costs and show us how to make fun of ourselves and of the whole world. Cassi, using the Italian translation of texts by Jimi Hendrix, make him the perfect partner to establish the link between her comedy and the need to think and laugh.
Stage music: Marco Poggiolesi
A production by: Associazione Teatro del Sale, Compagnia Maria Cassi
ObladìObladà
By and with Maria Cassi
A new, volcanic show in which Maria Cassi takes all the characters played in the previous 20 years of her career, de-contextualise them and their stories, and binds them together in the funniest of follies, with all her tricks and magic, to bring the audience to a “continuous laughter”. Tuscan and Florentine characters give way to incredible men and surprising ladies, brought on stage with a universal form of communication that the whole world can understand.
Maria Cassi reminds us, among fits of laughter, of the need to laugh at ourselves or at others with passion and participation.
A production by: Associazione Teatro del Sale, Compagnia Maria Cassi
Diavolacci
By and with Maria Cassi and Fabio Picchi
We skip from heaven to Piazza Pitti, from the Garden of Eden to the supermarket in the suburbs of Florence. Mixing standard Italian, dialect and English and adding her extraordinary expressivity, Maria Cassi describes the corners of Florence, where nervous mothers and elders with dogs try to hide from the inquisitive gaze of the gossip women. Adam, born out of a spit, is the first litigious and gloomy Florentine in history. Eve talks him into eating the apple of knowledge in the hope to finally get to know everything about the chemist’s new paramour and the shop where one her friends buys her prettiest shoes. In the background comes the warning of a Florentine mother: “’Cause we must die!” An odd journey in which love declarations turn into fine gastronomic metaphors and people go to work wearing pyjamas.
Devils, cities and paradise gardens mix in a journey of love, poetry and anthropology, a flight, an escape, where we face the intimate need to hoot with laughter: the very gift of Maria Cassi.
Guitar: Marco Poggiolesi
A production by: Associazione Teatro del Sale, Compagnia Maria Cassi
Attente al lupo
By and with Maria Cassi
The performer and actress uses daily language to underline the differences between men and women, beginning her narration from the pages of Holy Bible: she interprets Noa as Adam, and sets him against a “universal Eve”. Always with an explosive comedy.
In Attente al lupo, Maria becomes a remote, tough contemporary character, young and old at the same time, capable of telling stories and mix lyricism and comedy and using words as the key for the “downplay”. Marco Poggiolesi is in charge of the background music and, with his guitar, he invents motives that perfectly fit in with the show.
Guitar: Marco Poggiolesi
Light and sound: Diego Costanzo
A production by: Associazione Teatro del Sale, Compagnia Maria Cassi
My life with men… and other animals
Written by Maria Cassi e Patrick Pacheco
Directed by Peter Schneider
My Life with Men…and Other Animals is an exhilarating intensive course on love, seduction, death and… olive oil. This work is partly autobiographic, with Maria Cassi asking provocatively: “Which rules are we following in our lives? Who decides them?” Maria is a rebel that learns to live by the rules. However, she is the one who sets them and her rules are in line with her unconventional attitude.
Thanks to her expressivity, her inborn sense for comedy and her passionate voice, this charismatic artist traces her own path from rebellion to freedom and true liberation. The well-deserved wisdom arrives through odd encounters with a repressive mother, a cheating lover, an America weirdo, a moody chef and philosopher and a dear friend who is as naive as her when it comes to love.
The range of characters plaid by Maria was envisioned by Peter Schneider – winner of the Tony Award for the production of the musical The Lion King and the man behind many successful Disney movies like Who framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast. Here, he directs his first Italian production and builds a one-woman show around the extraordinary mimic and vocal expressions of Maria Cassi. The actress shifts comfortably from Italian to English, from acting to singing, and brings on stage the portrait of a real woman who can mesmerise both an Italian and a foreign audience.
Al pianoforte: Antonino Siringo
Music director: James Edwards
Set design: Gianni Carluccio
Costumes: William Ivey Long
Lights: A.J. Weissbard
Video: Valeria Palermo
A production by: CHANGE Performing Arts, Red Shoes Entertainment e Edizioni Teatro del Sale
Fiorentini
By and with Maria Cassi
Walking the streets of Florence, passing each corner, Maria Cassi transcends time and space and leads the audience on a journey of magic, poetry and comedy, which mirrors the inner nature of the Florentine people. Through her body language and her mimics Maria turns herself into the many characters of the neighbourhoods, streets, squares, bars, markets and buses of our city. The funniest show ever!
Assistant director: Nerina Cocchi
Light effects by: Diego Costanzo
A production by: Compagnia Maria Cassi
Pardon
By and with Maria Cassi
Maria Cassi gives herself to singing. She apologises, and really begs your pardon. Indeed, Pardon is the name of this twofold experience: that of a woman that loves both Florence and Paris. She soberly walks on tiptoe and goes from a first section full of love and passion to a second part devoted to “political” songs. In the first CD, “Solo canzoni d’Amore”, we find Besame mucho, the summer song Una giornata al mare by Paolo Conte, the smoky-sounding Che bambola by Fred Buscaglione, the jealousy of Una carezza in un pugno, the betrayal of Innocenti evasioni by Battisti, the moving song Mi sono innamorato di te by Tenco, or Vecchio frac by Modugno.
Nostalgic, heartfelt songs. Irony runs through this work, through its music and sounds. There are also four peculiar and funny new songs: Amami subito, based on A modo mio, Pardon, which gives the name to this album, and two songs with clear hints to food and cuisine: Fame di te and the delicate Soffriggo per te.
Guitar: Marco Poggiolesi
Piano: Antonio Siringo
Double bass: Ferdinando Romano
L’Omo Nero – Recital
By and with Maria Cassi
Thanks to the extraordinary musical dramaturgy, with her new recital “L’Omo nero” Maria Cassi escorts us, with laughter and emotions, into the world of our fears. Starting from the wonderfully childish and ingenious fear arising from fairy tales and children novels, from Roal Dahl to Alfred Polgar, the artist hugs and cuddles her audience and shows them the love and pain of the adult world, the life and the suffering, in a constant dance of enthusiastic laughter and deep feelings.
Piano: Antonino Siringo
Cooperation for the musical dramaturgy: Francesca Della Monica
Light effects by: Diego Costanzo
Assistant director: Nerina Cocchi
A production by: RAI Trade, 103 Edizioni Musicali Milano, Edizioni Teatro del Sale
With the participation of: CHANGE Performing Arts
Concertino d’amore
By and with Maria Cassi
After and amidst the successful experience of “My life with men and other animals”, the artist moves to a more literary, although still earnest approach, making use of her talents of interpreter, author and director.
In this work, “Concertino d’amore”, her unique comedy is merged to lyricism, as the purposely-simplified text of a poem by Carducci that foresees the coming of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.
Smile and be moved by the songs of the European and Italian tradition. Smile and be moved by her funny characters with her universal and moving human side.
Guitar: Marco Poggiolesi
Double bass: Ferdinando Romano
Suoniemozioni
By and with Maria Cassi
Stage music: Marco Poggiolesi
“Suoniemozioni”, sounds and emotions, these are the keywords for the interpretation by Maria Cassi, who discovers the underlying message of rare humour in the music and lyrics by Battisti-Mongol with an expert use of the singing voice, which sounds both lyrical and poetic. Laugh, laugh, cry and smile, be moved by the things we have already heard, loved or sang. Her extraordinary comedy finds its expression and may even touch on the more dramatic emotions. Being a great “theatre clown” is the core ability of both ancient and contemporary theatre. A theatre that requires a great emotional participation by the audience, who is both spectator and supporting character.
Crepapelle
by Maria Cassi andLucio Diana and with Maria Cassi
“Crepapelle” is a tale about falling in love with two cities, Paris and her home city. The relationship with the places, with the people, with the smells and colours and with the little and great follies of the everyday life of their inhabitants. The character is a mask that fits different roles, from old beggars to beautiful ladies, from old gentlemen to bus drivers, from children to shop assistants. Maria Cassi turns into a bakery window and a thousand more roles. And here again, as in many of her shows, Maria Cassi touches the “primeval” mind, that part of our brain that laughs, feels and save us from emotional inability. The audience understand the message and leaves the theatre with a sense of gratitude.
La porta aperta
By and with Maria Cassi based on the essay by Peter Brook

Galateo
with Maria Cassi
Based on the Galateo By Giovanni della Casa, the performance covers the different manuals on good manners written during the fascist period and concentrates on how to daily behave in society. We may even have four, five, six very different “Galateo” manuals. Indeed, we have the more ladylike version, a more manly one and some versions resulting from “educated” impromptu improvisation. We know for certain that a part of the audience has a very special attachment to this work