Every Brilliant Thing
(Everything worth living for)

Filippo Nigro / Fabrizio Arcuri

Every Brilliant Thing is a play by British writer Duncan Macmillan written in 2013 together with Jonny Donahoe (who was also its first performer). The play - a brilliant autobiography punctuated by a list of 'things worth living for' - was presented in its original version to great acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival and at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York and toured internationally between England, Australia and New Zealand.

In 2021 is staged in Italy, in Michele Panella's translation, with the four-handed direction of Fabrizio Arcuri and Filippo Nigro, who also acts in the play, for the co-production of CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione del FVG and Sardegna Teatro.
Filippo Nigro, one of the most interesting actors in Italian cinema and theatre, brings to the stage a tale of autofiction punctuated by "lists of things worth living for", in an attempt to provide his mother with an inventory of possibilities worth living for.
A list that grows longer with time, from childhood to adult life, until it enumerates a million valid reasons.

The list that emerges - and that the protagonist shares with the listener, in a confidential, engaging, intimate tone - is unpredictable, emotional and highly personal, made up of episodes and anecdotes captured on the fly by the protagonist in the margins of books, receipts and pub coasters.
Every Brilliant Thing gives life to a human and informal tale/confession of special moments, enlightenments, little quirks, encounters, emotions and unforgettable moments, during which he focuses more and more on his relationship with his father, his first love, the failure of his marriage, the search for help in times of difficulty.
In the end, the list, more than to his mother, will have been useful to himself at least to understand that '... if you live so long and you arrive at the end of your days without ever having felt totally crushed, at least once, by depression, well, then it means that you have not been very careful!
With the complicity of some of the spectators - who are called upon to make a small contribution to bring memories of the past to life - and through a writing style that is always tightly paced and amusing, Every Brilliant Thing succeeds in touching a delicate and complex subject such as depression with sensitivity and a non-superficial lightness.
In this personal version, Every Brilliant Thing becomes a participatory play that is first and foremost an experience for the audience.
Thanks to the response of the audience, the emotional temperature and the reactions created in the theatre each night, the performance is never the same, it can be different every night. In fact, Filippo Nigro rewrites the piece on stage together with the spectators who want to help him.
In this direction, Arcuri pursues his personal quest to construct collective imagery that always addresses reflections on life, on the society in which we live, and on the meaning of theatre.

Winner of the Franco Enriquez National Award 2022
The jury of the Franco Enriquez National Award 2022 - 18^th edition "for a theatre, an art and a communication of social and civil commitment" - City of Sirolo (Ancona) awarded the
Franco Enriquez 2022 National Award - City of Sirolo 18^th edition in the Contemporary Theatre Category Direction to Fabrizio Arcuri and Filippo Nigro and in the Contemporary Theatre Category Best Actor to Filippo Nigro
with the following motivation:
"Fabrizio Arcuri and Filippo Nigro have chosen to direct together and Nigro to masterfully interpret this text by Duncan Macmillan on the theme of depression, the dark evil that makes it impossible to cope with our lives. Through a long list of memorable moments to remember and a long list of notes taken here and there, on everything one finds at the moment, one can come to find the motivation to love and live life. Trying to be of help to those close to us who suffer from it, one ends up psychoanalysing oneself and with time this 'Life List' becomes more and more important, it punctuates the moments of a day and builds 'note upon note' the skeleton of a personality. Engaging and brilliant, the show's direction requires interaction with some of the spectators who, called upon to participate, impersonate some of the minor characters, becoming the destabilising and innovative element at each performance. The show opens an interesting exploration of the theme of depression, tackling it with lightness and irony.

Filippo Nigro is a claimed actor in film, television and theatre. He made his film debut in 1998. In 2001, he began his collaboration with Ferzan Özpetek, who wanted him in the cast of the film Le fate ignoranti and two years later in his next film, La finestra di fronte, for which the actor was nominated for a Nastro d’argento as Best Supporting Actor and won the Foreign Press Golden Globe as Best Actor.
After participating in two seasons of the TV miniseries La dottoressa Giò (1998), he returned to television in the Channel 5 series R.I.S. - Delitti imperfetti (2005-2007). In 2008, he starred in Un gioco da ragazze by debutant Matteo Rovere, in Amore che vieni amore che vai, based on the book Un destino ridicolo by Fabrizio De André. He was among the leads in the ensemble comedy Amore, bugie e calcetto by Luca Lucini, who the following year called on him to play Oggi sposi.
In 2009, with Diverso da chi?, a brilliant comedy by newcomer Umberto Carteni, he was nominated for a David di Donatello award as best supporting actor and won the Annecy Cinéma Italien male performance award for his role in the film. In 2010, he played the role of Danilo in Gianfrancesco Lazotti's film Dalla vita in poi, for which he won Best Actor at the Taormina Film Fest.
In 2011 and 2012 he was on stage with Martin McDonagh's play The Lonesome West, with which he won the E.T.I. Gli Olimpici del Teatro Award as best emerging actor.
In 2014 he was again on stage in Neil LaBute's play Reasons to be pretty, directed by Fabrizio Arcuri.
In 2012 he starred alongside Pierfrancesco Favino and Marco Giallini in the film ACAB - All Cops Are Bastards, based on the book of the same title by Carlo Bonini, directed by Stefano Sollima. In the same year, he was among the performers in E la chiamano estate, directed by Paolo Franchi.
In 2013, he played Pontius Pilate in the Italian-American miniseries Barabbas, opposite Billy Zane.
In 2015 he stars alongside Camilla Filippi in the thriller In fondo al bosco, and participates in Lucio Pellegrini's TV film Limbo.
In 2017 he joined the cast of Suburra - La serie, based on the film of the same title and produced by Netflix.
In 2019 he takes part in the cast of Ferzan Özpetek's La dea Fortuna.

Fabrizio Arcuri is the director and founder, in 1991, of Accademia degli Artefatti. In addition to his work as artistic director and director for the company, he has always flanked an intense cultural promotion activity, and has signed important curatorships, artistic directions, for festivals, theatres, and events.
Since 2020, he has been co-artistic director of the CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione del FVG.
He was artistic director of the Teatro della Tosse in Genoa for the three-year period 2011 - 2013, programming consultant for 2014 and 2015, and curator of the International Festival Prospettiva for the Teatro Stabile di Torino from 2009 to 2015.
For 11 years, in Rome, he has been in charge of the direction of the Massenzio International Festival of Literature and since 2006 he has founded and directed the Short Theatre festival.
Among his many prestigious experiences, it is worth mentioning the one as assistant to Luca Ronconi from 2005 to 2008, and as resident artist of the National Theatre "Teatro di Roma" from 2014 to 2018.
For four years he was the artistic director of the project La Festa di Roma until 2019, an idea of Roma Capitale - Assessorato alla Crescita Culturale for the New Year's Eve with the involvement of the main institutions of the Capital.
Some of his productions have won the most authoritative Italian awards: in 2005 the Ubu Award for the best foreign playwright proposal with Martin Crimp's Tre pezzi facili. In 2010 he won the Critics' Prize with Spara/Trova il tesoro/Ripeti, the Special Ubu Prize for the Prospettiva festival. In 2011 he won the Hystrio Prize for directing. In 2020 he receives the Radicondoli Prize for Masters of Theatre from the National Association of Theatre Critics. In 2022 he wins the special Ubu Award "for the seminal role of an artistic and organisational project that over thirty years has been able to create collective paths and encounters between artists of the contemporary scene, including festivals, reviews, shows and off-format objects. From the birth of Area06 and Short Theatre in Rome, through Prospettiva in Turin, the Teatro della Tosse in Genoa and the more recent experience at the CSS in Udine, Arcuri has shaped places of aggregation inspired by a plural vision. At the same time, the Artefatti company has in turn been a place of fruitful artistic encounters that have also branched out."

Duncan Macmillan is a British author and director. He writes for theatre, radio, television and film.
He has won many prestigious awards in his country: for his re-adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, he won the UK Theatre Award for Best Director. He won Best New Play at the Off West End Awards in 2013, the Pearson Prize in 2008, the Big Ambitious Award at the Old Vic in 2009.
His work has been presented at the Avignon Festival and in various other countries.
The original production of Every Brilliant Thing was presented at the Edinburgh Festival, at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York and then continued its tour in England, Australia and New Zealand.