A theatre beyond the performance
A quality theatre for all audiences. A place for entertainment, reflection, dialogue and transformation. A new artistic venue which is born with the vocation of offering a contemporary image in which anyone may see themselves. That is the Kamikaze Theatre.
Located in the heart of the most authentic district in Madrid, the Kamikaze Theatre emerges in 2016 alongside four kamikazes as an open, changeable and lively venue, where there is variety and in which the good things can be repeated. It wants to be a repertoire theatre within everyone’s reach. A place where the cult and the popular go hand-in-hand. A place where the classic and the modern unite.
Coming to the Kamikaze Theatre will be a 360º experience, which goes beyond pure performance. We want our theatre to be a place where you want to stay, and which you’ll always want to come back to. An unpredictable environment in which the audience, actors, professionals, researchers, writers and critics enjoy themselves and interact before and after each performance.
The Kamikaze Theatre is freedom, reflection, entertainment, commitment, frenzy and intuition. It’s a physical and emotional place where you can experience theatre to the full. Combining the best of public and private management under one roof, from morning to night in El Pavón there will be readings, rehearsals, conferences, presentations, training and education, social gatherings and enjoyment, research and all kinds of activities and experiences, along with a stable and quality, in-house and external, national and foreign line-up of shows. As lively as our theatre.
Welcome to our home, which is yours too. Welcome to the new El Pavón Teatro Kamikaze, National Theater Award 2017.
With the support of:
To my mind, the contemporary look isn’t about putting Hamlet in jeans. It’s about Hamlet saying things which directly affect you, now, as a citizen in the twenty-first century”.
Miguel del ArcoArtistic director at El Pavón Teatro Kamikaze
El Pavón, a theatre with tradition
Located in Madrid, at nº9, Calle Embajadores, the Pavón Theatre was built in 1924 by Teodoro Anasagasti on Francisca Pavón’s initiative. Since it was opened in 1925, the theatre has been the venue for historic premieres such as Las leandras (1931), which consolidated Celia Gámez as the great star of her time, or Nuestra Natacha (1936), starring María Fernanda Ladrón de Guevara.
After the Civil War, el Pavón was used intermittently as a concert hall, cinema and theatre until its closure in the nineties. In 1999, it became the property of the Zampano company, which commissioned its restoration to the architect, Ignacio de las Casas Gómez. Thus, the theatre regained its original appearance and such characteristic elements such as the banisters, the doorways or the interior bar, as well as the installation of fire prevention measures.
Between 2002 and 2015, due to the restoration work on the Teatro de la Comedia, the Pavón was used as the headquarters of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico (CNTC), which on numerous occasions hung up the sold-out sign with plays like Life is a Dreamor (2012) o Don Juan Tenorio (2015).
The Pavón is built with a concrete structure of pillars and beams on the three lower floors and with a metal structure on the top floor. On the outside, two Catalan-style terraces finish off the façade, decorated with sgraffito work with floral and geometric motifs which it had originally. It is one of the few modernistic buildings which remain in Madrid.
AREAS
THE TEAM
El Pavón Teatro Kamikaze is a choral project led by Miguel del Arco and Israel Elejalde as artistic directors with Aitor Tejada and Jordi Buxó leading the management team. Together they form a team of professionals united by their way of understanding theatre. Backed by the successful careers of Kamikaze Producciones and Buxman Producciones, in 2016 their dream of managing their own place has come true.
THE TEAM
Miguel del Arco
Actor, scriptwriter, adapter, playwright and director. He brings together the whole philosophy on which Kamikaze Producciones is built, the production company which he founded in 2002 along with Aitor Tejada. After filming three short films which won more than one hundred awards at different film festivals, in 2009 Kamikaze launches its first theatre production, La función por hacer, a free adaptation of Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello, which becomes quite an event and is awarded, among others, with seven MAX Awards. In 2010, he directs Nuria Espert in The Rape of Lucrece, by William Shakespeare. In 2011, Kamikaze coproduces Summerfolk, a version of the homonymous work by Gorki, with which they were awarded five MAX Awards. Tireless and prolific, Miguel has adapted and directed Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck -Valle-Inclán Award 2013 and the Ercilla Award for the Best Performance-,The Inspector General, by Gógol, Misanthrope, from the original by Molière; and Hamlet, a version of the classic by Shakespeare. He’s the author and director of The Youkali Project, Trial of a Whore and Desire. Recently he has done a version of and directed the zarzuela ¡Cómo está Madriz!
A public meeting place. A place for dialogue and reflection. A place for partying and entertainment. This is what we want the Pavón to be. We’ve been doing all this for a very long time. All we’re trying to do now is play at home”.
Miguel del Arco
THE TEAM
Israel Elejalde
He’s one of our most respected stage performers. A reputation that he has earned thanks to such memorable roles like his latest Hamlet or Alcestes in Misanthrope. He has one of the soundest careers in Spanish theatre, where he has worked under the baton of directors of the stature of Álex Rigola, Ernesto Caballero, Gerardo Vera, Helena Pimenta, Eduardo Vasco or José Luis Gómez. Under the direction of Miguel del Arco, he has starred in, among others, Summerfolk, La función por hacer, Misanthrope and Hamlet. The Ojo Crítico de Teatro Award by the Spanish National Radio in 2004, Israel has also been seen regularly on television, in series like Águila Roja, Love in Difficult Times or El comisario. In cinema he has taken part in cult films like Magical Girl, by Carlos Vermut, for which he was nominated for the Goya as best revelation actor. In August he will take charge of raising the curtains at the Kamikaze Theatre with the premiere in Madrid of Idiot, a production with which he takes on his second adventure as director.
I sometimes think about why four hundred people decide to go somewhere and be quiet together for two hours. I get deeply emotional during that act of communion in which someone says, “I’m in a forest,” and the rest think, “Okay, I believe you.” I think it’s amazing that this exists in today’s era. There’s something deeply humane about it”.
Israel Elejalde
THE TEAM
Aitor Tejada
He is author, actor, screenwriter, assistant director and producer, as well as soul and instigator -together with Miguel del Arco- from Kamikaze Producciones, which both of them founded in 2002 and which is possibly the theatre producer and company that has had most influence on the national scene. Together with the company, he has been awarded some of our most important theatre awards, among which, the MAX Awards in 2011 for the Best Private Entreprenuer, Best Adapter and Best Performance, the MAX Awards in 2012 for the Best Private Entreprenuer and Best Performance and the 2015 CERES Award for the Best Business Career. Aitor has been adapter for La función por hacer and assistant director in Hamlet, Misanthrope, Desire, The inspector General, Summerfolk and La función por hacer, amongst many other works. As producer, we can also highlight his work in Hamlet, Antigone, Misanthrope, Trial of a Whore, La función por hacer and The Youkali Project.
The Pavón won’t be a predictable venue. Risk and emotion will have their place there. We want to turn it into a place where the public come because they trust in our line-up of productions”.
Aitor Tejada
THE TEAM
Jordi Buxó
Linked to the world of cinema and the stage for almost two decades, Jordi Buxó has been production manager, among others, of some of the most successful shows of the choreographer and dancer Maria Pages. In 2013 he began collaborating with Kamikaze in the production of Misanthrope. In 2014 he founded Buxman Producciones, coproducing alongside Kamikaze La clausura del amor – a play starring Bárbara Lennie and Israel Elejalde which was presented in 2015 in the Barcelona Grec Festival and in the Autumn to Spring Festival in Madrid- and La isla púrpura, directed by José Padilla. He also collaborates with Kamikaze in Antigone and Hamlet.
Our reference from an artistic point of view is the Schaubühne in Berlin . Where the programme constantly changes, where there are repertoire plays. Where you can see a production for five years after its premiere”.
Jordi Buxó