BIOGRAPHY · SAMUEL SALAMONE
A life built on stage.
More than twenty years moving through theatre, movement, image-making, creation and continuous learning. A journey in which every discipline, encounter and stage has left a tool behind.
BEFORE THE ACTOR
My story did not begin with an audition or at drama school.
It began much earlier: with curiosity, community and the discovery
that expression could also become a way of understanding
the world.
Before I knew I wanted to be an actor.
Theatre was already present as a possibility within my family: my mother had wanted to perform. It became one of my earliest, indirect encounters with the idea of expressing oneself on stage.Explore this chapter
It was not yet a professional ambition. Theatre simply existed
as something that made me curious. The decisive indication
would come later, outside an arts school, during my years
in the Scout movement.
Someone saw something before I did.
From the age of ten to eighteen I grew up within the Scout movement, progressing through its different stages. It was there that someone first recognised a particular gift for expression in me. I took that observation seriously and asked to start theatre.Explore this chapter
Eight years of community life also meant learning autonomy,
responsibility, adaptability, organisation, initiative
and teamwork.
Long before directing performers, coordinating artists or
teaching groups, I was learning what it meant to participate
actively in a community.
A school built around the arts.
The Liceo Artistico Sperimentale Michelangelo Antonioni – Cinema e Arti Applicate became one of the foundations of my artistic education.Explore this chapter
Over five years I studied and experimented with cinema,
photography, theatre, graphic design, post-production
and applied arts.
Through Patrizia Fazzini, art also became connected to current
affairs, culture and dialogue. I gradually began to understand
it not simply as technique, but as a means of communicating,
educating, observing and questioning reality.
The disciplines begin to meet.
From the age of fourteen, working with Chiara H. Savoia transformed my curiosity about acting into a practice. At the same time, photography and visual disciplines continued to shape the way I looked.Explore this chapter
In 2007 my photograph Sommerso da received the Junior
First Prize in the InformaGiovani “Eccoci qua!” competition.
I later also worked alongside photographer Luca Perazzoli.
Early recognition for acting, particularly for the use of
the body and stage space, began to reveal another constant
that would remain central to my work.
The body, the mask and transformation.
I never looked for a single technique. Improvisation, physical theatre, voice, dance, stage combat, masks, objects and transformation gradually became part of the same language.Teachers and experiences
I worked with Valentina Maselli for several years,
with a particular focus on improvisation.
My training also included encounters with Kuniaki Ida,
Mamadou Dioume, Danio Manfredini, Michele Abbondanza,
Julie Anne Stanzak, Michael Margotta, Maurizio Donadoni,
Linda Wise, Enrique Pardo and other teachers.
I also studied at the Paolo Grassi school in Milan.
Puppetry and object theatre, and later drag performance,
expanded my research into masks, materials, identity
and transformation.
From studying theatre to living inside it.
Companies, productions and increasing responsibilities gradually transformed training into a profession.Explore this period
I worked for approximately three years with Teatro Stabile
dell’Umbria, encountering artists including Danilo Nigrelli
and Antonio Latella.
Massimiliano Burini and Occhisulmondo contributed to a way
of thinking in which acting, image and creation were no longer
separate territories.
My encounter with Mario Mirabassi and object theatre brought
material and objects into that research. Quando c’era Pippo,
a finalist for the Premio Scenario Infanzia, also belongs
to these years.
A change of scale.
Entering the world of opera placed me inside a different theatrical machine: large spaces, music, precision, image and movement, with the performer’s body becoming part of the visual dramaturgy.Theatres and productions
At Teatro alla Scala I worked as a mime and performer
in productions by artists including Robert Carsen.
Over the years I have also worked at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma,
Teatro San Carlo, Teatro La Fenice, LAC Lugano,
Grand Théâtre de Genève and other international institutions.
An encounter that became a sense of belonging.
At sixteen I saw an Emma Dante production for the first time. Years later I joined her company. The collaboration became one of the central threads of my career and has continued for more than a decade.More than ten years of work
It has not simply been a sequence of productions, but years
of rehearsals, creation, revivals, opera, theatre and
international touring.
Macbeth, which received an Angel Herald Award
in Edinburgh in 2017, Eracle,
Re Chicchinella and numerous opera productions
form part of this journey.
Starting again without starting from zero.
Moving to Spain meant entering another language, another cultural environment and another professional system while continuing my international career.A second period of training
In Valencia I deliberately became a student again.
Teatre Escalante, screen acting, Spanish-language dubbing,
dance, circus and later Gaga expanded my tools once more.
From stage to camera.
Training in Spain gradually opened another territory: adapting years of stage-based character work to the scale, intimacy and precision of the camera.Recent projects
Recent work includes Javier in the Spanish series
La Herencia del Marqués and Marco in
Trippin’, an international pilot created by
Alexander Talal and filmed in Valencia in 2026.
From performer to author and director.
Over time it became clear that performing represented only one part of my relationship with theatre. I began developing projects, spaces and dramaturgies of my own.Directing and original work
My university studies in International Communication
and Advertising, photography, theatre and years of experience
as a performer gradually began to converge.
Intrusione explores how performance can enter real
spaces and temporarily transform them.
Mi Querida España carries this need for authorship
into cinema, between Italy and Spain.
Turning experience into a method.
After many years as a student, actor and performer, another question became part of my work: how can accumulated experience become a useful tool for other people?Teaching and pedagogy
This research developed into workshops on acting, movement,
comedy, improvisation, character creation, stage combat,
drag and the actor’s ability to become an author.
Theatre tools later entered universities, organisations
and companies through work on communication, presence,
listening and collaborative leadership.
More recent research includes Il Corpo che Canta,
exploring the relationship between acting, the body
and musical performers.
TODAY
The disciplines are no longer separate.
Actor, director, creator and trainer are now parts of the same process. The body remains at its centre: the body that performs, communicates, enters into a relationship with a space and has the ability to transform it.Creation and directing →
02 · ACTORActor and performer →
03 · TRAININGTraining and approach →
