TRIE was founded in 2007 by Dr Dana Rufolo as a framework for a range of theatrical activities. These include actor training and producing theater and performance pieces. Equally, as director of TRIE, Rufolo is involved in writing about the theater arts including theoretical work on drama therapy and in editing Plays International & Europe. TRIE offers Drama Therapy to groups of students, art therapists in training, peace and conflict resolution workers, and suicide cluster populations. TRIE is the acronym for Theater Research Institute of Europe. It is pronounced TRY. As of 2015, TRIE operates out of Constance (Konstanz) Germany. It was founded as an asbl (une association sans but lucratif or Not-for-profit organization) in Luxembourg, Luxembourg. The working language of TRIE is English.
One of the goals of TRIE is to actively research the hypothesis that the need to be theatrical is innate to the human being. This research includes philosophical and pragmatic parameters. Dana Rufolo presupposes that creating drama is a fundamental human activity which is either consciously or unconsciously integrated into the personality. When the fundamental urge for dramatic activity is unconscious, the hypothesis states, then there may be what has been called inappropriate “acting out.” It is TRIE’s objective to disseminate the recognition that the urge to represent one’s self in relationship to self and to others on a designated neutral space is a fundamental need which must be recognized, sanctioned, and encouraged. Drama permits the escape from self and the development of the perception of self simultaneously. In other words, dramatic activity blends the psychology of performance with the aesthetics of performance. Indeed, ethnologically the psychological reasons motivating the development of dramatic art are as compelling as the aesthetic ones. Dana Rufolo has chosen to focus TRIE on the psychological rather than the aesthetic origins of the drama to offset the usual devaluation of theater’s psychological components. No answers are given in advance; research is ongoing. Rufolo encourages all who, like her, debate on the practice of actor training, on Drama Therapy, and on performance or drama where the balance between psychological and aesthetic components is scrutinized. What is learned will be disseminated through the umbrella organization of TRIE.
