I haven't seen Toni for a long time, I think since he came on vacation when I was living in Montreal, in 1997. I find him unchanged and very enthusiastic, as always, about theater. He welcomes me at the flamboyant Sala Beckett, in Poble Nou, an unquestionable reference point for theater in Barcelona. As he shows me around the facilities I realize how passionate he is about it and how lucky he feels to be doing his job. I tell him, apologizing, that I rarely go to the theater, almost never, in line with the reasons given by Quim Monzó in his famous talk Why I don't go to the theater, and he answers that he likes the theater precisely for the same reasons that Monzó doesn't like it.
Toni Casares is the director of the Sala Beckett/Obrador Internacional de Dramaturgia. With a degree in Catalan Philology from the UAB and a postgraduate degree in Theory and Criticism of Theatre Performance, he was a founding member of the UAB's Theatre Classroom, of which he was artistic director from 1992 to 2004, as well as head of the university's Live Culture Program.
Between 1989 and 1992 he was General Coordinator of the Centre Dramàtic de la Generalitat de Catalunya. In 1997 he took over the direction of the Sala Beckett in Barcelona, to which he had been linked since its foundation.
He has directed shows of international contemporary authorship, with special attention to Catalan authorship, with texts by Sergi Belbel, J.M. Benet y Jornet, Martin Crimp, Pau Miró, Mercè Rodoreda, Mercè Sarrias, Roland Schimmelpfennig, or Fréderic Sonntag, among others. He is the author of Aquí s’aprèn poca cosa, the theatrical adaptation of the novel Jakob Von Guntten, by Robert Walser.
(Between 2005 and 2012 he was a member of the Advisory Council of the National Theater of Catalonia, and between 2011 and 2016, a member of the executive committee of the Barcelona Culture Council. He is currently a member of the Advisory Council for the Performing Arts of the Ministry of Culture).
