TRIE asbl – the Theater Research Institute of Europe – is a small, non-commercial nexus of research and performance. The executive director is Dr Dana Rufolo. TRIE (pronounced TRY) was founded as an asbl (une association sans but lucratif, a not-for-profit organization) in Luxembourg. Its working language is English.
A key goal of TRIE is to promote the performance projects of its performance wing, TR(ie)Y Justice. Rufolo personally developed, under the banner of TR(ie)Y Justice, street theatre performances on human rights issues in connection with Amnesty International Luxembourg. Another example is her Hurt, Dignified, a full-length play produced for the 2007 European Capital of Culture, or her narrative poem performances.
A recent narrative poem performance piece has been developed with financing from the Luxembourg Government’s Ministry of Culture, called JOYN: A Marriage Made in Megaheaven based on a prize-winning narrative poem of Rufolo’s about a wedding. The theme is: Join in Joy, a celebration of love and community.
Thepublic premiere of JOYN took place at the Spiegelhalle, Theater Konstanz, in Germany on 3 December 2022 as part of the theater’s guest shows. The performance is based on a combination of acting and dance to narrate the dramatic action in a choreography, designed by Martin Anderson, supporting the words of each poem in JOYN. A first studio performance took place in the summer of 2021 in Dessau, Germany, with actors from the UK and Italy and dancers from the Anhaltisches Staatstheater, under the artistic direction of Eric Abbott from Luxembourg. The language of production is English. Presently the project is seeking further funding and welcomes inquiries from theatres and other interested parties to perform in their venues.
TRIE also published the quarterly theatre magazine Plays International & Europe as a print edition distributed throughout theatre research departments at academic institutions (see Wikipedia entry). In January 2022 Plays International & Europewas relaunched in the UK as a purely digital edition by a new owner and editor, Jeremy Malies.
TRIE activities include training such as a student workshop held in 2019 at the Faculty of Language and Literature of the University of Luxembourg and a presentation at a session in honour of University of California at Irvine Professor Emeritus Robert Cohen at the Cluj-Napoca Theatre Festival in Romania. A two-day workshop for postgraduate students on theatre criticism was held at the University of Edinburgh in October 2021.