When very young he approached Teatro delle Albe, participating to the workshops that the company has conducted since 1991 in every upper school in Ravenna.
In 1998 he is chosen to perform as one of the twelve palotini in the show I Polacchi, written and directed by Marco Martinelli, and inspired by Alfred Jarry’s Ubu the King. The show met with international success, from Stockholm to Caen, from Tehran to Belgrade. The twelve palotini get a nomination as “best actors under 30” for the 1999 Ubu Prize.
After I Polacchi, he joins the company permanently and will perform in all of its subsequent shows.
In 2000 he plays in a restaging of Karl Valentin’s Tingeltangel, and appears both in L'isola di Alcina and in Baldus, where he plays the bandit Baldus: for this performance he wins the prestigious prize Premio Lo Straniero 2001. With the other young actors in Baldus, he gets another nomination as “best actors under 30” for the 2001 Ubu Prize.
In 2002 he plays Puck in Sogno di una notte di mezza estate, a rewriting of William Shakespeare’s Sogno di una notte di mezza estate by Marco Martinelli.
In 2003 he interprets the role of Firefly-Plant-Mouse in I Refrattari, Marco Martinelli’s “edifying drama”.
In 2005 he is on stage beside Ermanna Montanari in La mano, de profundis rock.
In the same year he plays in La canzone degli F.P. e degli I.M., “public reading” taken from the same-title text by Elsa Morante, with Alessandro Argnani, Luca Fagioli and Alessandro Renda.
In 2006 he plays the double role of Schoolmaster and Barone di Mordax in LEBEN, a show that, together with Sterminio, constitutes a “diptych on evil” shaped as a choral self-portrait.
In 2007 he is on stage as Bordure in the show Ubu buur, a new restaging of I Polacchi which features a chorus of youths from Diol Kadd, a village in the heart of Senegal. With Ermanna Montanari he is responsible for the costumes of this show. The work, created in Senegal, makes its European debut at the Festival des Francophonies in Limoges (France) and is also hosted in important Italian festivals, such as Teatro Festival Italia in Naples and VIE in Modena.
In 2009 he makes his debut with ODISÉA, “lettura selvatica” from Tonino Guerra’s text: this is the first occasion for him to undertake an in-depth personal practise on Romagnolo dialect, used as scenic language.
In 2010 he plays in the two Albe shows based on Molière: the Italy-Belgium co-production detto Molière, where, along with Alessandro Argnani, he is the only Italian actor in a cast comprising of more than 30 actors and youths from Belgium and France; and L’Avaro, where he dresses the part of Cléante, the vain son of Harpagon, played by Ermanna Montanari.
In 2012 he contributes to the creation of PANTANI, original text by Marco Martinelli based on the great Romagnolo cyclist, in which he interprets as many as five characters, among whom the bandit Vallanzasca and Roberto Conti, Marco Pantani’s trusted friend and supporting rider.
In 2001 he contributed as director assistant to the making of Maurizio Lupinelli’s Woyzeck, co-produced by Associazione Pleiadi and Teatro Comunale di La Spezia.
Since 2002 he has been a guide in the non-school workshops.
In 2003 he conducts a theatre workshop with Mandiaye N’Diaye on Aristphanes’s Pluto in the Senegelese village of Diol Kadd.
In 2007 he is one of the guides in ARREVUOTO, a three-year project of Teatro Mercadante directed by Marco Martinelli and curated by Roberta Carlotto, which brings the experience of non-school to Naples and Scampia.
In 2008 he conducts a workshop in Lido di Classe with five Brasilian transexuals, bringing on Teatro Rasi’s stage a work based on Massimo Bontempelli’s Minnie la candida.
In the same year he is a guest of Settembre dei Poeti, a prestigious poetry festival taking place in Seneghe, in the province of Oristano, where he reads a selection of poems by Raffaello Baldini, introduced by Franco Loi.
In the following years he continues to take part to the festival, bringing there the experience of non-scuola. As of now, he contributes to the planning of the festival.
In September 2010 he and Alessandro Renda are the guides in a workshop on Vladimir Majakovskij held in Rio de Janeiro, the result of a collaboration between Rio de Janeiro’s Italian Institute of Culture and the NGO Galpao Aplauso.
In 2011 he is a guide in ERESIA DELLA FELICITÀ (“Heresy of Happiness”), an outdoor show dedicated to Vladimir Majakovskij and directed by Marco Martinelli. The exceptional event, held during the international theatre festival Santarcangelo 41 under Ermanna Montanari’s artistic direction, has seen the reunion of all the “tribes” who participated to non-school in the world.
In 2012 he works in Venice as a guide, along with Laura Redaelli, in ERESIA DELLA FELICITÀ, under Marco Martinelli’s artistic direction. This project, together with the one held in Santarcangelo, is the recipient of the Special 2012 Ubu Prize.
Since 2008 he has been responsible for Teatro delle Albe’s archive of costumes.
Roberto Magnani has published texts on periodicals such as Gli Asini (edited by Goffredo Fofi) and Venezia Musica e dintorni (edited by Leonardo Mello for Fondazione Venezia), and on the book Il Teatro salvato dai ragazzini. Esperienze di crescita attraverso l’arte (edited by Debora Pietrobono and Rodolfo Sacchettini, Edizioni dell’Asino).
Outside the work with Albe, he has contributed to the radio production Verdesche, directed by Alessandro di Robilant, for the Al presente series, curated by Anna Antonelli, broadcasted on Radio Rai 3. In 2005 he contributes to the radio programme Storyville, broadcasted on Radio Rai 3, in the episode dedicated to the rapper Eminem.
As for motion pictures, he is the protagonist in the movie La destinazione, directed in 2000 by Piero Sanna.
