Števo Capko

Actor, gagman, choreographer and clown Števo Capko (b. 1970), studied from 1993 – 1997 with Ctibor Turba and Boris Hybner at the Department of Nonverbal and Comedy Theatre, Academy of Music and Drama in Prague. Also during that time, he made study visits at the Scuola Teatro Dimitri in Switzerland and at the Centre National des Arts du Cirque in France, as well as at a workshop conducted by the American clown Daniel Gulko. After graduation from the Prague Academy in 1997, he went to work with various theatre companies, in the Czech cities of Cheb, Karlovy Vary, Mladá Boleslav, Jihlava, and Ostrava. In Prague, he joined the creative team of Archa Theatre, collaborating on the company’s productions Archa Questioning Heaven in Despair (directed by J.A. Pitínský), and Karma Tearoom. Subsequently, he formed the clownery theatre company Sacra Circus, with which he mounted a production entitled Faustroll, based on Alfred Jarry’s book, followed by an acrobatic show, Draceana (drawing on the legend of Saint George), and a series of productions entitled Mechanica, Circus Žardini, Brick Circk, and Clowns?!. Sacra Circus is a clownery group working with the widest variety of circus skills and clowning acts to create legends about “things happening between heaven and earth.” Its focus is on the realms of comedy and the mysterious world of circus clowns. In 2006, Sacra Circus took its production Draceana to the theatre festival in Madrid. Its clownery Brick Circk was shown at the Czech Mate Festival in Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California, in the autumn of 2009.

His career in opera choreography started in the 2003/2004 season, by collaboration with the Brothers Forman Theatre and the National Theatre in Prague, on their production of Philip Glass’ opera The Beauty and the Beast. His collaborations with stage director Jiří Nekvasil at the National Theatre in Prague have included productions of the Janáček operas The Excursions of Mr Brouček and Jenůfa (Dublin, Riga, National T. Prague), a stage version of Verdi’s Requiem, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and The Secret, Martinů’s The Greek Passion, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, and at the Prague State Opera Trygve Madsen’s Circus Terra, and Massenet’s Don Quichotte. At the National Theatre in Brno, he did choreographies for the productions of Janáček’s The Adventures of the Cunning Little Vixen (staged by James Conway), Bohuslav Martinů’s Juliette (staged by Jiří Nekvasil), Rossini’s La Cenerentola (staged by Rocc), and Tomáš Hanzlík’s and Vít Zouhar’s opera La Daphne (staged by Rocc). Working for the Znojmo Music Festival in its 2008 and 2009 editions, he contributed choreographies for its opera productions of Antonio Vivaldi’s Dorilla in Tempe, and Joseph Haydn’s Il Mondo della Luna (both staged by Jiří Nekvasil).

As an actor, Števo Capko featured among others at the Prague National Theatre’s productions of The Master and Margarita (1999), and Hamlet (1999). He is likewise active as a drama stage director, working for the Municipal Theatre of Mladá Boleslav, where he staged Carlo Goldoni’s The Two Venetian Twins, using the commedia dell’arte style with period masks. Coupling his artistic career with teaching at the Academy of Music and Drama in Prague, he lectures in clowning acts, corporeal mime and masked acting at the schools faculties of drama, cinema and music. He was a visiting lecturer in modern stage clownery in a workshop at San Francisco’s Flying Actor Studio.