Biography
Rita Reis Originally from Luxembourg and Portugal, Rita Reis has also lived in Belgium and the in United States. She acts in multiple languages, and has collaborated in the development of several new theatre creations. In Europe and in Pittsburgh, Ms. Reis has also performed in plays by authors such as: Anton Chekhov, Bertolt Brecht, Ingmar Bergman, Samuel Beckett, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Georges Perec and Arthur Schnitzler. In 2006 she was the assistant director on the documentary on the referendum about the legal status of abortion in Portugal, Of Conviction, directed by Julie Freres, which won the Jury's Special Prize in the Doclisboa film festival.
Until 2011, Ms. Reis was an MFA Graduate Fellow at the Conservatory of Point Park. Her MFA dissertation focuses on the creative process she developed for Fat Beckett. During the course of her studies at Point Park she taught voice and movement for actors, and focused her research in the development of the actor's creativity through his physical and vocal instrument. In the movement classes she taught she used techniques developed by Jerzy Grotowski, and she gave a talk on this experience at the University of Kent in the 2009 conference on Grotowski. At Point Park she also studied and taught voice using the Linklater technique and is now working towards being certified in this method.
With the Beira Project she went to Mozambique, where with Luis Pedro Coelho she collaborated with local groups that use Theatre of the Oppressed to fight the HIV epidemic. For two months, they taught physical theatre in provincial high schools and directed A Rede, a collective creation based on La Ronde. The paper they wrote about the development of this piece was selected for presentation at the national conference of the American Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She is the cofounder and President of Rabbit Bounce, a non-profit organization for education in developing countries.
In 2012, Ms. Reis went back to Luxembourg where she performed in a production of The Children by Edward Bond. She is going to play Martirio in The House of Bernada Alba directed by Carole Lorang at the Grand Theatre de la Ville in Luxembourg and at Les Bouffes du Nord in Paris.
