ABOUT ME
Willy the Clown, alias Antonio Villella, was born in 1976 in Turin, Italy. In 1998 he graduated as a director and actor from the School of Theatre of the Compagnia Viartisti in Turin. From 1994 to 2007 he worked with this company. In 2008 he founded the company Crab, of which he is still a member. In 2011 he created the "Teatro Abitato" Project, an ensemble of theatre companies and a training center in Avigliana (TO).
From 2013 to 2019 he has been involved with the Torino Fringe Festival.
Since 2005 he has been experimenting with clowning, and his most significant encounters were with P. Hottier, C. Colombaioni, P. Nani, F. Tardito, A. Rendina, P. Radice, J. Edwards, and P. Ercolano. Since 2015 he has been primarily focused on clown shows and his own clown teaching method, "Playing, Listening, Clowning."
His clown is not politically correct. His physicality is dense and concrete. His sometimes dark humor appeals to audiences of all ages. From 2017 to 2018 he was the clown teacher at the Die Etage - Schule für die Darstellenden Künste e V. and at the Schule für Bildende Kunst und Gestaltung Andrei Krioukov GmbH.
Since from 2018 to 2025, in Berlin, he has been regularly running his own Clown-LAberlin, collaborating with Mime Centrum, Vuesh gGmbH, Phynixtanzt Studio.
To date, he has performed in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, France, Germany, Uruguay, Brazil and Israel.
Since 2015, over 280 students have been trained using his method: Playing, Listening, Clowning.
Upcoming productions include Dream (2026), and Clown Story, or the origin of
the Clown (2027).
VIDEO
I founded Crab Teatro in 2008 with Eloisa Perone and Pierpaolo Congiu. From the very beginning, our company focused on research. We rewrote texts such as The Three Musketeers by A. Dumas, revisited classic plays like Finale di Partita by S. Beckett, Cain by F. Kafka, and Cyrano by E. Rostand, and explored poetry with works like The Nights of Tino by E. Lasker Schuler. We also staged original texts such as Relazione per accademia, In the Name of the Mother, and La memoria del vuoto, before arriving at our production, ClownLoveShow.
Since 2005 he has been working with the company, in particular he is part of the show "Circhio Lume" - dance theater show
at the edge of the Clown.
The show has been performed in Italy, Brazil, Uruguay, France, Switzerland, Israel, Italy.
Since 2000 he collaborates with the acrobatic company Sonics as an actor, director and playwright.
