Sorin Aurel Sandu

Sorin Aurel Sandu is an actor at the Stela Popescu Theatre, Bucharest. Pursuing his life’s passion, he studied acting at the Ion Luca Caragiale National University of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts, Bucharest, after first having taken a degree in Microtechnics and Optics at the Bucharest Polytechnic. He went on to take an M.A. at the Ion Luca Caragiale University, submitting a dissertation titled ‘Roma Theatre in Romania: To Be or Not to Be. A Plea for an (as yet) Non-Existent Theatre’. He has worked as an actor at the Masca Theatre, where, besides the classical repertoire, he also appeared in Commedia dell’Arte productions, street theatre, living statue performances, and body movement performances, developing the means of expression specific to these genres. His portfolio of rôles includes Pantalone and Geronte (Goldoni’s Servant of Two Masters), Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse (The Comedy of Errors), Palaestrio (Plautus’ The Braggart Soldier), Henry Curry (Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker), and Chiriac (Caragiale’s A Stormy Night). He has worked with directors Alexander Hausvater, Victor Ioan Frunză, Michele Modesto Casarin, and Mihai Mălaimare, among others.

In 2010 he achieved an absolute first in Romanian theatre when he staged Jekh răt lisiame, a Romani-language production of Caragiale’s A Stormy Night featuring a cast of Roma professional actors, which he not only translated, but also directed and acted in. His work in theatre also includes writing and directing a work for children’s theatre (The Impertinent Prince and the Wise Old Man) and mounting a production of Chekhov’s The Wedding.

He has presented the television programme I Was Born in Romania Too, which looks at the many sides of Roma life. He is the founder of the AmphitheatRrom Cultural Association, which aims to promote theatre in the Romani language.

Sorin Aurel Sandu is also a writer, having published two collections of poetry: TRANSGRESSION (2017) and Thirst for the roundness of time—thoughts from the yellow notebook 92018). The collections were partly bilingual Romani-Romanian and were both published by the Romano Kher National Centre of Roma Culture.

Passionate about the Romani language, Sorin Aurel Sandu has translated into his mother tongue plays (Ion Luca Caragiale’s A Stormy Night: Jekh răt lisiame, Editura Vanemonde, 2012), Romanian poetry (Mihai Eminescu’s ‘Why don’t you come to me’, ‘The Sleepy Birds’, ‘Farewell’, and Nichita Stănescu’s ‘Autumn Emotion’, which were included in the Romani Language and Literature tenth-year school textbook), Portuguese poetry (Atico Vilas Boas da Motta, Ciganos. Poemas êm transito, in a Romanian-Romani-Portuguese-English edition published by Editura Coresi in 2008, with the Romani title E rroma. Phirutne poèmura), a story in verse (‘Anda’ o siklipe’, ‘On Learning’) from Anton Pann’s The Story of Speech (2005), and religious texts (The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom or Prayer Book for Orthodox Christian Use). He is currently working on further translations into and from Romani.