Antonio Álamo

Antonio Álamo (Córdoba, 3 November 1964) is a Spanish writer. He has developed an extensive body of work that includes novels, short stories, travel writing and plays. In July 2004, he was appointed director of the Teatro Lope de Vega in Seville.

Biography

Born in Córdoba (Spain) in 1964, he soon moved with his parents to Madrid. At the age of 17, he settled in Seville. He graduated in law from the University of Seville and from a young age showed an interest in theatre, becoming both a playwright and a director.

Career

Author of a number of sharp-witted comedies, Álamo has written around a dozen plays since 1991, among them the trilogy made up of Los borrachos (1993), Los enfermos and Yo, Satán. In 2006, he collaborated on the staging of El príncipe tirano by the Renaissance writer Juan de la Cueva for the Centro Andaluz de Teatro in Seville. Directed by Pepa Gamboa, this plot about greed, ambition and the contradictions of human nature was reworked by Álamo from two original texts, La comedia del príncipe tirano and La tragedia del príncipe tirano.

Co-director of the theatre company El Traje de Artaud, he has worked as assistant director to Alfonso Zurro and Jesús Cracio. With his play Veinticinco años menos un día, written in 2005, and premiered on 17 September 2011 at the Teatro Español in Madrid, he set out to pay tribute to English theatre.

In 2007, he wrote Cantando bajo las balas, an impossible dialogue between Millán Astray and Miguel de Unamuno.

In 2009, he wrote, together with Juan Carlos Rubio, the play La ciudad de todos los tiempos, based on texts by Borges and music from One Thousand and One Nights, a project with which the city of Córdoba supported its bid to become the 2016 European Capital of Culture.

In 2012, he wrote La copla negra, a play set in Cádiz, "the south of the south", whose protagonists are a group of chirigoteros (Carnival song performers). It premiered in Córdoba on 22 March 2013.

The premiere took place at the Teatro Palacio Valdés in Avilés with the following principal cast: Ana López Segovia (Juanita Calamidad), Teresa Quintero and Alejandra López Segovia.

Style and theatricality

Álamo is associated with the so-called "dramaturgy of the millennium", a generation of playwrights influenced by the avant-gardes, Samuel Beckett and Fernando Arrabal, which has grown up around the Marqués de Bradomín Prize.

This generation includes the Asturian writers Maxi Rodríguez, José Busto, David Desola and Borja Ortiz, among others.

Positioned on the threshold of the digital age, they draw on the Spanish dramatic tradition (such as José Luis Alonso de Santos or Fermín Cabal) but see their work as incomplete without a strong narrative backbone. In Álamo's own words, he feels "the need for a world with fiction". 1993 – Tirso de Molina Prize for Los borrachos. 1993 – Ciudad de Alcorcón Prize for Los borrachos. 1996 – Editorial Lengua de Trapo Novel Prize for Breve historia de la inmortalidad. 1996 – Borne Theatre Prize for Los enfermos. 1996 – Ercilla Prize for Best Production of the Year for Los borrachos. 1996 – Palencia Theatre Prize for Pasos. 2000 – Caja de España Prize for Grande como una tumba. 2004 – Premio Jaén de Novela for El incendio del paraíso. 2004 – "Cordobés del Año" (Cordovan of the Year), awarded by the Asociación Cultural Al-Ándalus of Palma del Río. 2005 – Borne Theatre Prize for Veinticinco años menos un día. 2006 – Chivas Telón Prize for Best New Play for Yo, Satán. 2007 – Yo, Satán received the awards for Best Production, Best Direction (Juan José Martín) and Best Supporting Actor (William Guite) at the Municipal Theatre Awards of Caracas. 2007 – Jury Prize for Best Show at the Mostra Internacional de Teatro de Rivadavia for Cantando bajo las balas. 2007 – Chivas Telón Prize for Best Play of the Year for Cantando bajo las balas. 2010 – World Theatre Day Prize, awarded by the Diputación de Sevilla. 2017 – Premio Córdoba an Escena, awarded by the ESAD and the Diputación de Córdoba. 2017 – Premio Lorca for stage adaptation for El pintor de batallas. 2017 – Teatro Rojas Prize for Best New Play for El pintor de batallas. 2020 – XXI SGAE Children's Theatre Prize for La increíble historia de la caca mutante. 2023 – Premio Lorca for playwriting (Autoría Teatral) for Sí, a todo.

Works

Novels

Álamo published Breve historia de la inmortalidad (Lengua de Trapo Narrative Prize 1996, published by Lengua de Trapo) and has contributed short stories to the collections Páginas amarillas (Lengua de Trapo, 1998) and Daños colaterales (Lengua de Trapo, 2002). In 1998 he published his second novel, Una buena idea, with Planeta, in which he uses the voice of a child to criticise literary solemnity.

The following year saw the appearance of ¿Quién se ha meado en mi cama? (Lengua de Trapo, 1999). He has also published a collection of short stories, Los perros y los gatos. His novel Nata soy (2001) later served as the basis for his play Yo, Satán. In 2004 his novel El incendio del paraíso was published by Mondadori.