Fratelli Bologna is an American business

theater company Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicat ...

based in San Francisco. The group brings their theater skills to the business world through engaging trade show presentations, creativity training, improv training, meeting facilitation and theatrical interventions during conferences. Fratelli Bologna combines scripted material, original music,

improvisation Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

, and dramatic visual imagery to convey complex messages to a wide range of audiences including the leaders of major corporations in the United States and Europe. Clients include Dow Corning Corporation, Lucent Technologies (now Alcatel-Lucent), CHRISTUS Health., Ernst & Young’s Center for Business Innovation, Round Table Pizza, and

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was the first theme park opened by the Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, ...

. They won the

Drama-Logue Award The Drama-Logue Award was an American theater award established in 1977, given by the publishers of Drama-Logue newspaper, a weekly west-coast theater trade publication. Winners were selected by the publication's theater critics, and would recei ...

for best ensemble in 1987.

History

In 1979 a group of ten men and women performed the Italian masked comedies of the

Commedia dell'Arte Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Theatre of Italy, Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is a ...

on the main stage of the Renaissance Pleasure Fair in Novato, California. Called La Famiglia Bologna (the Bologna Family), they performed together for two years. Richard Dupell founded Fratelli Bologna (originally i Fratelli Bologna) in 1981 with four other actors from the original troupe: John X. Heart, Christopher Beale, Jack Tate and

William Hall William Hall, Will Hall or Bill Hall may refer to: Actors *William Brad Hall (born 1958), American actor * William Hall (actor), American actor *William Hall (actor, born 1903) (1903–1986), American actor * William Hall Jr. (died 2025), American ...

. Fratelli Bologna, with two additional members of La Famiglia Bologna, Ed Holmes and Drew Letchworth, was cast as the Press Corps in Philip Kaufman's movie '' The Right Stuff''. From 1998 – 2002, Fratelli Bologna was the theater in residence for San Francisco’s Idea Factory founded by John Kao, author of ''Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back''. The group was fundamental in the founding of

BATS Improv {{Primary sources, date=January 2008 BATS Improv (formerly known as "Bay Area Theatresports") is a non-profit improvisational theatre company in San Francisco. Founded in 1986, their unique style of acting-based improvisational theatre is well know ...

and its approach is based on the work of

Keith Johnstone Donald Keith Johnstone (21 February 1933 – 11 March 2023) was a British-Canadian educator and theatre director. A pioneer of improvisational theatre, he was best known for inventing the ''Impro System'', part of which are the Theatresports. ...

, author of "Impro" and "Impro for Storytellers."

References

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External links

Fratelli Bologna Official site History of BATS Improv
Theatre companies in San Francisco Performing groups established in 1979