A Passion for Theatre

(Copyright, Lebanese Imprints on the Twentieth Century, Volume I, Asma Freiha and Viviane Ghanem, 2006)

Jorge Takla was born in Beirut on the l 6th August 1951. His father Philippe Takla was Lebanese, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and a prominent pre-Civil War politician. His mother, Didi Maalouf was a most elegant Brazilian of Lebanese origin.

Jorge Takla spent his primary and secondary school years between Beirut and Paris, at the Collège Protestant Français and the International College, graduating from the Lycée Janson de Sailly in 1971 before returning to register at the American University of Beirut.

He specialized in Architecture, although it must be said without great commitment, at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris and, for two years between 1972 and 1974, concurrently took theatre classes with André Touchard at the Conservatoire National d’Art Dramatique.

He began his career in theatre as an actor and assistant director at the 1974 Shiraz Festival with Andrei Serban’s company in a play called A Mad Man, directed by Robert Wilson. He went to New York’s La Mamma theatre with the same company and, settling there for three years appeared in Electra, Medea, The Trojans, The Good Soul of Se- Tchouan and As You Like lt. He also toured internationally with that company, visiting Paris, La Rochelle, London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, Venice, Florence, polete, Turin, Taormina, Vienna and Amsterdam. His directive début, again at La Mamma Theatre, was the musical On My Coral lslands, based on the Somerset Maugham novel.

It was finally in Sao Paolo that Jorge Takla fulfilled his dream by buying the Teatro Procopio Ferreira. Between 1983 and 1992 he was the theatre’s owner and administrator, while fulfilling many other roles: producer, author, translator and designer for sets, costumes and Lighting.

He is now a director of the Corporation Interamericana de Entretenimiento, the company that produces hits and attracts large audiences with productions such as Les Misérables and Beauty and the Beast.

He has staged over sixty plays, musicals and operas, including:

The First, play by Horowitz, 1978
The Trap, play by Levin, 1979 Phedra, play by Euripides, with ballet, 1980
The Cherry Orchard, play by Tchekhov, 1982
Agnes of God, play by Pielmeier, 1982
A Chorus Line, musical by Kirkwood, 1983
Madame Blavatsky, play by P. Marcos, 1985
Souvenirs of China, play by A. Nogueira, 1986
Electra, play by Sophocles, 1987
Lac 21, play by Shakespeare and Tchekhov, 1988
Cabaret, musical by Masteroff-Kander-Ebb, 1989
The Marriage of Figaro, opera by Mozart, 1989
Les Petits Bourgeois, play by Gorki, 1990
The Theatre Director, opera by Mozart, 1991
Parsifal, opera by Wagner - Von Eschenbach with theatre and dance,1992
II Tabarro, opera by Puccini, 1992
Six Degrees of Separation, play by Guare, 1993
Cavalleria Rusticana, opera by Mascagni, 1993
I Pagliacci, opera by Leoncavallo,1993
Edward the Second, play by Marlowe,1994
Madame Butterfly, opera by Puccini,1994
The Seagull, play by Tchekhov, 1995
Master Class, play by Terence McNally, 1996
La Traviata, opera by Verdi, 1996
Medea, play by Euripides, 1997 Crazy for Gershwin, musical, 1998
La Bohème, opera by Puccini,1998
The Last Moons, play by Furio Bordon, 1999
Candide, opera by Bernstein, 2000 Victor Victoria, musical by Edwards-Mancini, 2002
Les Contes d’Hoffmann, opera by Offenbach, 2003