L'Ecole des Maîtres is an  international theatre training school for young professional actors. It is directed by Franco Quadri and promoted in Italy by CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione and Ente Teatrale Italiano (the Italian Theatrical Board) in collaboration with numerous European partners in France, Belgium, Portugal and Spain. Now in its twelfth year, the school offers young actors from the theatre schools and academies of Europe with the opportunity to meet and learn from some of the finest directors on the international theatre scene and to test themselves by playing challenging roles and confronting masterpieces of modern and classical theatre.  Prior to each edition, ETI announces a call for applications from young Italian actors, six of whom are selected. These six are then joined by another six candidates selected in France and Belgium and four from Portugal, making a total off 22 pupils. The first edition of the Ecole des Maitres, which was held in Brussels in 1990 for the purposes of  discussing the proposal and laying down the groundwork, was attended by Luca Ronconi, Jacques Delcuvellerie, Jerzy Grotowski, Anatolij Vasil'ev and Jacques Lassalle. The second edition was held in December 1991 in Udine under the leadership of the Portuguese director Luis Miguel Cintra and marked the beginning of CSS’s involvement in the project. Since that date, CSS has been the School’s organizational coordinator. The third edition, held between December 1992 and January 1994, saw the launch of the itinerant format of the course with master classes given in Belgium by Yannis Kokkos and Luca Ronconi, by Lev Dodin in France, Peter Stein and Jacques Lassalle in Italy (Stein in Tarcento and Lassalle in Fagagna at the Palazzo Pico, which was to become the permanent Italian headquarters of the Ecole). The directors commissioned for the fourth edition were  Alfredo Arias, Dario Fo and Anatolij Vasil'ev, who gave master classes in Brussels, Florence and Fagagna respectively during the months of May and June 1995. Alfredo Arias retuned to direct the fifth edition held in Fagagna from September - October 1996 while Anatolij Vasil'ev  returned to Fagagna to direct the sixth edition between August and October 1997. The seventh was directed by Matthias Langhoff (Fagagna, August - September 1998) while the eighth was directed by Eimuntas Nekrosius  in Fagagna (1-16 August 1999), Massimo Castri in Brussels (19 - 29 August 1999), Jacques Lassalle in Saint-Priest-Taurion (29 August - 24 September 1999). The ninth edition took place in both Fagana (31 July - 27 August 2000) and in Saint-Priest-Taurion in France (10-26 September 2000) once again under the leadership of Eimuntas Nekrosius, who worked on a staging of The Seagull by Cechov, making it the first genuine stage production to be realised during one of the school’s training courses. The play, co-produced by Css and the Metastasio Public Theatre of Tuscany, debuted at the Venice Biennale on the 3, 4 and 5 July 2001 and was also hosted at major theatres throughout Italy between October 2001 and February 2002. Jean-Luis Martinelli, director of the Theatre des Amandiers in Nanterre (Paris), directed the tenth edition, which was held in  Fagagna from 1-25 August and in Saint-Priest-Taurion from 27 August to  September 9, 2001.  Martinelli worked together with his 22 pupils on an in-depth analysis of Platinov, the unfinished play written by the young Anton Chekhov. The performance resulting from the workshops was presented at Liège and Rome. Delcuvellerie was commissioned to direct the eleventh edition and together with the song master Dirk Vondran from Leipzig, worked on the theme: epic theatre and Brechtian song. The first phase of the master class was  held at the Palazzo Pico in Fagagna between 2 and 21 August, the second phase (23 August - 11 September) moving to Theatre de la place in Liegi, where the sessions culminated in a public performance of the pupils’ work. The twelfth edition, held exclusively in Fagagna in a single session (5 August to 11 September 2003) was directed by Giancarlo Cobelli and Giovanna Marini, who worked on the play Woyzeck by Georg Buchner. The master class focussed on both the themes and key dramatic points of Buchner‘s masterpiece and was analysed in the context of 19 century history.