Every rehearsal begins with two people trying to meet.
Sometimes they are in the same room.
Sometimes they are an ocean apart.
coffee & cigarettes is an international theatre company led by Maro Lesioti (Greece) and Gabriel Caropreso (Brazil).
We create spontaneous theatre through shared authorship, parallel rehearsals and a bi-continental creative process connecting Athens and São Paulo. Distance is not something we overcome. It is part of our dramaturgy.
We believe theatre begins when people truly meet.
Eagerly
Waiting
A bi-continental experiment in spontaneous dramaturgy.
A spontaneous theatre performance about the people we keep meeting, even when they are no longer there. Created between Athens and São Paulo, it unfolds differently every night while returning to the same questions of distance, memory and presence.
As improvisers, we have a responsibility to challenge injustice and not allow our stages to normalise oppression through silence. As the genocide in Palestine continues alongside settler-colonialism, apartheid, and military occupation, neutrality is not an option.
Our company has signed the GRIP statement, joining improv theatres, festivals, artists, professionals, and students around the world committed to these principles. We encourage you to do the same.
Performances that create connection. Connections that can't be performed.
Eagerly Waiting
A bi-continental experiment in spontaneous dramaturgy.
Eagerly Waiting is a spontaneous theatre performance about the people we keep meeting, even when they are no longer there.
Created between Athens and São Paulo through parallel rehearsals and shared authorship, the piece unfolds differently every night while returning to the same questions: how do we remain close across distance? What do we build while we wait? When does imagination become a place we can inhabit together?
Performed in Portuguese, Greek or English, Eagerly Waiting invites audiences into an intimate theatrical experience where memory, absence and presence are composed live, one performance at a time.
Eagerly Waiting: An Improvised Play
Can an improvised play be published? We think it can.
Eagerly Waiting: An Improvised Play is our attempt to write a play that refuses to become fixed. Part documentation, part handbook and part artistic reflection, the book gathers the structures, exercises, rehearsal practices and conversations behind Eagerly Waiting, offering a detailed guide for artists interested in creating spontaneous dramaturgy.
If traditional theatre publishes scripts, this book asks a different question: what happens when the script is the process itself?
Gabriel Caropreso & Maro Lesioti
English · Portuguese · Greek
In development
Second half of 2026
We teach the way we work: with truth and care.
coffee & cigarettes offers workshops based on the creative processes developed through its bi-continental practice of spontaneous dramaturgy. Rather than teaching formulas, we create spaces where performers investigate presence, composition and collaboration through live creation.
Every workshop can be adapted to different experience levels, institutions and festival contexts.
Spontaneous Dramaturgy
Building long-form improvised performances through theatrical composition, image, rhythm and emotional architecture.
Working Across Distance
A practical laboratory on creating theatre across cities, countries and time zones through shared authorship and parallel rehearsal processes.
Eagerly Waiting
An intensive workshop exploring the techniques, structures and rehearsal practices developed during the creation of Eagerly Waiting. Participants experience the artistic principles behind the performance while learning practical tools for creating spontaneous dramaturgy.
IMPRO.SP · São Paulo
ImproSynthesis
Memories of what disappeared.
A visual archive of rehearsals, performances, travels and the people we met along the way.
We began with a rehearsal.
coffee & cigarettes is an international theatre company led by Maro Lesioti (Greece) and Gabriel Caropreso (Brazil), focused on bringing people together through spontaneous truth.
The company was born after the two met while performing The Dark Age of Love by B. Kissa at IRREVERENTE 2025 in Lisbon. What started as a shared stage soon became an artistic partnership that continued across the Atlantic.
In December 2025, coffee & cigarettes premiered simultaneously in Athens and São Paulo. Since then, the work has travelled through Greece, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Portugal, while continuing to develop between the two cities that shaped it.
We develop spontaneous dramaturgy through parallel rehearsals, shared authorship and continuous dialogue between Athens and São Paulo.
Working across continents is not a limitation but a creative practice. We build a shared repertoire by exchanging references, experiences and ways of seeing the world.
Our work embraces contradiction with tenderness. It remains politically engaged without becoming didactic, finding poetry in the ordinary and trusting improvisation as a way of thinking together.
Gabriel Caropreso
Gabriel Caropreso is a Brazilian theatre maker, clown, improviser and musician based in São Paulo. His work brings together devised theatre, improvisation, street performance and music, with a long-standing practice as a performer, director and educator in Brazil and internationally.
Maro Lesioti
Maro Lesioti is a Greek theatre maker, performer, director and educator based in Athens. Her artistic practice moves between contemporary theatre and improvisation, creating original performances, directing international collaborations and teaching artists across Europe and beyond.
Connections made. Connections yet to come.
Maro Lesioti and Gabriel Caropreso meet while performing The Dark Age of Love at IRREVERENTE Festival (Lisbon).
Simultaneous world premiere of Eagerly Waiting in Athens and São Paulo.
European Tour
Thessaloniki · Barcelona · Oslo · Uppsala
Irreverente Festival — Lisbon
Belfast Improv Festival
ImproFest Ireland — Dublin
Expected publication of Eagerly Waiting: An Improvised Play.
What lingers after curtain call.
“The improvisational performance by Maro and Gabriel was unique and special, an idea and a composition that was incomparably creative. And yet, the reflections and emotions that they awakened in me were so familiar, for me and I think for all young people.”
“The show is accessible to non-improv audiences, who don't have to try to see where you are every time, because of the way scene painting is happening. Sometimes the virtual space reminded me of a mobile phone screen and sometimes a calendar. Great climax in the end! The story built naturally and the fusion came smoothly. Every little detail in the set or in what you wrote in the middle or said to your characters was a little exhibition. You were not afraid to exist. And I'm glad I was a witness.”
“I had an idea of what to expect, but I didn't expect tears rolling out.”
“Watching Eagerly Waiting really proved to me how much improv theatre can offer us! It was really a spectacular show full of feeling and intensity.”
“At times a soothing exercise in mood setting, at others a careful dramatic emotional exploration. I was vibin' with it.”
Let's start a conversation.
Whether you're interested in presenting our work, hosting a workshop or simply starting a conversation, we'd love to hear from you.
No contact form. Direct communication only.