Willem Dafoe on His Second Venice Theater Festival Program
Willem Dafoe
Courtesy of Andrea Avezzù/La Biennale di Venezia
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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.”
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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 impu