Sokrat Mio, theater director, Merited Artist, was born in Korça. He studied directing at the Dramatic-Musical Academy of Paris (1934). In 1935, as a director of the “Vllaznia” company in Shkodër, he staged “Wilhem Tell” by F. Shiler with high school students, which was banned by the authorities. With the students of the technical school of Tirana, he staged the drama “Besa” (“Trust”) by Sami Frashëri. With the artistic and sports society “Rinia Korçare”, in Korça he staged the drama “Enemy of the People” (1937) by H. Ibsen, using innovative methods, such as combining the stage with the platform, he removed the fourth wall, which gave the play a pronounced democratic character with strong social and political criticism for the time. It helped the amateur theater, leading it to the path of realistic interpretation. During the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, he started his activity in the partisan theater in 1944, with the creation of the choral-theatre group in Lavdar of Korça, with which he staged the poem “Epopeja e Ballit Kombëtar” (“The Epopee of the National Front”) (Sh. Musaraj) and the comedy of A.Z. Çajupi “14 vjeç dhëndër” (“14 year bridegroom”). In the first years after the war, he worked at the People’s Theater and directed the first drama school; from 1950, director at the “AZ Çajupi” theater in Korça. He has staged a series of well-known works of world dramaturgy (by Moliere, N. Gogol, C. Goldoni, B. Johnson, etc.), dramatizations from the works of Albanian authors, such as M. Grameno, F. Postoli, K. Jakova , S. Çomora, etc. With his work, he contributed to the elevation of the artistic level of Albanian theater, putting it on the path of realistic interpretation and artistic professionalism. (In the photo: Sokrat Mio)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1729.
Photo: © Xhoxhi L., personal archive
Graphic processing: AHCF
