Manuel Amado

Manuel Amado (1938, Lisbon, Portugal) was the fourth of seven children of writer and theatre director Fernando Amado and Margarida Sotto-Mayor. He grew up in the Palácio Pimenta, now the Museum of Lisbon, and studied at the Colégio Moderno. As a child, he performed in school plays and was an actor with the Mocidade Portuguesa theatre, directed by António Manuel Couto Viana. He also participated in plays directed by his father at the Teatro Universitário de Lisboa. Although his interest in theatre remained throughout his life, he only returned to the stage in 1984, performing alongside artist Lourdes Castro in Almada Negreiros' play Antes de Começar at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Modern Art Centre. He also created sets for various plays, which he found to be a "wonderful thing" to do.