Jacob Olesen

Jacob Olesen has been acting for more than thirty-five years with his Donati & Olesen Company, in which he is actor, author, musician, and often director. He has produced more than twenty different shows from his own creation to Waiting for Godot etc, and performed over 2,500 times all over the world, with six languages at his command.

His lengthy, distinguished career began at The Commedia School in Sweden and continued in Paris at the L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Later he also acquired a teacher’s diploma in the Feldenkrais Method.

In parallel with the company work, he began creating his own productions: My Name is Bohumil, followed by Oibò sono morto, for which he was awarded different prizes, and the monologue Primo, taken from Primo Levi’s If This is a Man, which he is presently touring and presenting in national and international Theatres and festivals, Roma, Moscow, Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Budapest etc. He has appeared in many short and feature-length films and worked on numerous radio and television programs.

He teaches acting, stage presence, Commedia dell’Arte and clown. Since 2011, with Jim Calder, he has collaborated with New York University in Florence, teaching, creating Commedia dell’Arte performances, and helping to stage productions with professional actors, graduates of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.