Willem Dafoe Courtesy of Andrea Avezzù/La Biennale di Venezia Willem Dafoe has unveiled his second lineup as artistic director of the theater department of La Biennale di Venezia — the Italian arts organization that also oversees the Venice Film Festival. The theme for the 54th International Theater Festival, which runs June 7–21, is “ALTER NATIVE.”
“There is no precise meaning as the etymology can be vague or evocative,” Dafoe said at a Monday press conference. “The idea is to think ALTER as in change — NATIVE as your nature. Or ALTER as in other — NATIVE as the culture one is from.”
Related Stories
TV Richard Gadd Drama 'Half Man' Sets Premiere Date on HBO
TV Russell T. Davies on World "Sliding Back" on Queer Rights, Showing Conservatives' "Hearts and Humanity" in 'Tip Toe'
In a “truth-challenged world,” Dafoe said his goal was to platform voices and cultures that many audiences won’t be familiar with — and to push back against a theater landscape he feels has lost its edge. “Professionalism has flattened its soul,” he said. “It can feel polished to the point of sameness. I miss the amateur spirit.” His 2026 program, he suggested, would favor cracks over polish.
The lineup spans India, China, Indonesia, New Zealand, Rwanda, Greece and Italy, among others. Italian playwright and director Emma Dante will receive this year’s Golden Lion, while young Greek-Albanian director Mario Banushi will be honored with the Silver Lion. Dante will present a new creation, I Fantasmi di Basile, inspired by the fairy tales of Basile’s Lo Cunto de li Cunti.
Other highlights include Sharmila Biswas’ company performing Mischief Dance, described as “a subtle reinvention of traditional Odissi dance”; Indonesian dance theater collective Bumi Purnati Indonesia presenting two pieces drawn from late 19th-century legends; and from Rwanda, Dorcy Rugamba’s Hewa Rwanda, Letter to the Absent — a music theater tribute to his family, killed in their home on the first day of the Rwandan genocide. Samoan director Lemi Ponifasio brings his Star Returning, exploring the rituals and traditions of China’s Yi people, while Japanese director Satoshi Miyagi presents Mugen-Noh Othello — his company’s first appearance in Italy. Davide Iodice, who brought his take on Pinocchio to Venice last year, returns with Promemoria, staged with residents of Venice’s elderly nursing home San Giobbe.
La Biennale di Venezia’s theater department was founded in 1934, making it one of the organization’s younger arms — following art (1895), music (1930) and cinema (1932). Since 1998 it has been programmed annually, with past artistic directors including Romeo Castellucci, Peter Sellars and, most recently, Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte (2021–2024). Dafoe spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about this year’s program, its themes and what it means to champion the amateur spirit at a moment when the world feels anything but settled.
Some themes, such as the importance of the body in acting, seem to continue this year after your first. But there are also new approaches. Can you highlight what’s different this year?
I wanted to have a program that’s fresh and does not get too much of the same old, same old. I was interested in having people here who aren’t always seen. But also, just geographically, I wanted to spread out the selection, since in different countries, theater has a different relationship to the people, to the culture. It is always instructive, because their impulse of what they’re trying to make is conditioned by different things, and sometimes that can make a very different kind of theater — how much they lean into their cultural past, their stories, how much they use developed or not developed technology, what kind of theater language they have.
We’re not talking about taking people from faraway places who go to London or NYU and get the same kind of training that people in the West get. We’re talking about people who are making work there, and they’re dealing with their experience in their work.
The first year, I was dealing with people I worked with, people I admired, people whose work I knew. This year, it’s a little bit more roll of the dice, and I invited people that I didn’t know so well. Some of them are making pieces, based on the strength of their earlier pieces, that I haven’t seen yet. So there’s a risk involved, but for me, it’s very much about the impulse behind what they make and the theater language they use.
I always go back to when I was a young actor, and I went to this marvelous place in Holland [the Mickery Theater in Amsterdam,] that had a lot of financing, and [artistic director Ritsaert ten Cate] would go around the world, and he’d take things that he found interesting. I benefited from that, because I was working there, on and off, for many years. I would see stuff from all over the world. And because of the difference, not just in terms of culture, but in how theater functioned in their country, they were bringing a different impulse. It widened my vision of what theater could be. And that’s the impulse behind this.
So, you are hoping to make theater more about the challenge and experience of discovery instead of serving up known comfort food?
People think what they need more than anything is to escape from their life and be entertained or distracted with something that’s pleasurable and that’s cool. But I think it’s far more rewarding if you find something that surprises you, gives you a new take on something, and you learn something. How you see, think, [and] how you feel is opened up in a way that accommodates more pleasure, love, inquiry, curiosity. The secret of going to any performance, or any kind of performative art form, for me is [about that]. I love it when you’re there and you’re like: “What is this? What does it mean?” It’s not just about stories or sharing an experience. It’s about mystery, too.
You mentioned the “truth-challenged” world of today, which I took as a timely reference to the social media and “post-truth” age. Can you talk about that a bit more and what seems to be your invitation to all of us to open our hearts, eyes and minds?
Social media and the internet can give us wonderful things, but they can also give us [a sense of] false freedom. You feel the anxiety of yourself out in the world, and the connectivity is anomalous, whereas with something like theater, you’re there. You’re experiencing something, and you’re there for it. That’s the value of theater, whereas people with a mediated experience, virtual experience, are always going places that they feel they’re free to go. But the truth is, they’re all built to send you to certain places just by algorithms.
Now, I don’t want to be a critic of technology, because technology can do many great things. I just want to highlight the very visceral thing of being present in front of a human being. Doing things in an invented context can be very illuminating and very freeing.
Was your mention of a “truth-challenged” world a reference to anything specific?
My experience with AI, as an actor in the movies, is that they’re getting away with murder, and there are no guardrails right now. Someone sends me stuff that’s on the internet that seems ridiculous, and then I show it to someone, and they say, “Oh yeah, I saw that, too. I thought it was real.”
You won’t be performing in Venice this year, but you will have a role beyond that of artistic director, correct?
I won’t be performing, but we’ll be doing a workshop. We did this beautiful international open call and received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of applications. I personally went through them — I really did — and picked 11 people. They will come for a month and have a different mentor every week. I take over for a week, too. So that’s my hands-on experience. I worked with the Wooster Group for many years, and then I’ve done theater through the years, but I haven’t done theater for a while, and I’m looking forward to doing this because theater becomes more and more important to me.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
If anyone has a chance to come to Venice, it’s really beautiful here when the Biennale happens. So if you’re needing a cultural vacation, it takes place June 7-21. It was really beautiful last year, so I recommend it.
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe Sign Up
