Costache Caragiale

Life & Legacy

Costache Caragiale (Romanian pronunciation: [kosˈtake karaˈdʒjale]; 29 March 1815 – 13 February 1877) was a Romanian actor and theatre manager who had an important role in the development of the Romanian theatre.
Born in Bucharest, Wallachia, he made his stage debut in 1835 and, in 1838, organized a theatre company in Iași, Moldavia, which became part of the first Romanian National Theatre.
He worked in many Romanian regional theatres, especially in Iași, Craiova, and Botoșani, and encouraged the usage of plays by Romanian dramatists of the day, especially those of Vasile Alecsandri and Constantin Negruzzi. Between 1852 and 1855, Costache Caragiale was the first director of the National Theatre Bucharest. He also wrote a few comedies, such as O repetiție moldovenească – A Moldavian Rehearsal (1844) and O soaré la mahala (A Soirée in the Neighbourhood) in 1847.
He is the uncle of Ion Luca Caragiale, a Romanian playwright. His younger brother, Iorgu Caragiale, was also an actor and theatre director.