Poet, theatre director and journalist. Mario Azzopardi was born in Hamrun, a suburb of Valletta (Malta) on 11 September 1944 . Azzopardi was educated at the Lyceum, the Training College for Teachers, and the University of Malta (UM). In 1969 he graduated as a teacher of art qualifying with a distinction in the Theory and Practice of Education and later obtained a Master of Philosophy in Theatre.

Azzopardi was a co-founder of the Moviment Qawmien Letterarju (Movement for the Promotion of Literature), the Centru Espressjoni Popolari (Movement for Popular Expression), Teatru tat-Triq (Street Theatre) and Il-Polz (Pulse) a controversial literary journal regarded as a radical exponent of new wave genres. Between 1967 and 1972 he freelanced as a journalist on the theatre and the arts with l-Orizzont (Horizon), The Malta Economist, The Bullettin and Malta News. In 1971 he co-founded Saghtar (Thyme), a cultural magazine for students which has now been passed on to the Malta Union of Teachers. In the eighties, he launched Neo, a left-wing literary magazine. He also co-edited Analizi (Analysis), a paedagogical bi-monthly journal for students of literature. He has taught art, literature, and drama in state schools and still teaches social and political theatre at the UM.

Azzopardi was one of the first resident tutors at the Maltese Academy of Dramatic Art (1977-81) and served with the Drama Unit of the Ministry of Education. In 1979 he set up the Lyceum Youth Theatre. He conducted Theatre in Education projects with Theatre Centre ( London ), North London Polytechnic, and Histoire et Theatre ( Paris ). In 1986 he conducted theatre workshops at Sonnenberg in Germany . In that same year he was also awarded the Phoenicia ( Malta ) Cultural Award for his direction of Brecht's Galileo .

Azzopardi's repertoire as a director includes works by Aristophanes, Euripedes, Shakespeare, Webster, Moliere, Racine, Ibsen, Stringberg, Gorky, Chekov, G.B. Shaw, Eliot, Brecht, Pinter, Wesker, Williams, Albee and Sartre. He founded Politeatru in 1987 as a drama-forum group to cater for the culturally-deprived masses.

In 1988 Azzopardi co-founded the Maltese-Palestinian Standing Committee and edited and designed a collection of poems by Palestinian poet Mahmound Darwish. In 1988 he directed Theatre in Education projects in Trento, Rovereto and Bolzano ( Italy ) and with Jane Maud of the Young Vic Company ( London ). He was a co-ordinator of the International Festival for Peace held to commemorate the Bush-Gorbachev Malta Summit in 1989. In 1990 he directed The Wall in Hamburg , a project which marked the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Between 1989 and 1992 he carried out liaison work with art and theatre institutions in Berlin , Moscow , Leningrad , Rostov-on-Don, and Vilnius ( Lithuania ). In 1990, as an artistic director of the Russian Cultural Centre, he co-ordinated the first

Maltese-Russian Festival of Arts in Moscow . During the same year he collaborated with the New Literature Society (Berlin ) to launch the first Maltese Literary Convention in the German city.

In 1991 he co-ordinated the first joint cultural venture between the US and Russian embassies in Malta : the musical Tom Sawyer was performed in English by actors of the Maxim Gorki State Theatre ( Rostov ). He went on a theatre study tour to the USA in 1992.

In the early nineties, he freelanced as a journalist with The Malta Independent, In-Nazzjon (The Nation) and Il-Mument (The Moment). Since 1995 he has been the co-ordinator of the cultural supplement Spektrum (Spectrum) of Il-Mument , later re-named Fokus (Focus), a platform for writers and intellectual commentary.

Azzopardi has published his poems in shared anthologies Antenni (Antennae) (1968); Analizi `70 (Analysis '70) (1970); Mas-Sejha tat-Tnabar (The Call of the Drums) (1971); and Dwal fil-Persjani (Lights behind the Shutters) (1972). He has also published five individual collections Demghat tas-Silg (Tears of Ice) (1976); Passiflora (Passion Flower) (1977); Tabernakli (Tabernacles) (1979); Monikordi (Monochords) (1984); and Noti mis-Sanatorju tal-Mistici (Notes from a Mystics' Sanatorium) (Silver Medal Literary Award, 1995). He also published a series of critical notes for students of Maltese literature, including a controversial study, Dun Karm: Bejn il-Vatikan, id-Duce u l-Kuruna (Dun Karm: Between the Vatican, the Doce and the Crown) (1993). He is the author of an entry on Maltese theatre in the Encyclopedie Bordos de Michel Carvin ( Paris , 1995). An anthology of his poems, Naked as Water (trans. G. Falzon), was published in California , in 1996. An earlier anthology, Only The Birds Protest was published in 1981 in Oregon .

In 1995 Azzopardi resumed educational drama work with the Drama Unit Theatre Programme (Ministry of Education) with a series of projects conducted for academically-unmotivated adolescents.

He was appointed director of the Malta Drama Centre at the start of 2004, introducing drama therapy, drama for personality development and community theatre.

Azzopardi is also connected to Malta 's Art Council through the publication of Kultura 21 (Culture 21), which involves him with production and design.

In 1998 he was appointed member of the Policy Unit at the Ministry of Education and Culture and wrote Malta 's first cultural policy in 2000. He has since then contributed several entries related to cultural policy to various European agencies. He also conducts regular theatre workshops overseas within the framework of European Union programmes.

A firm believer in culture and the arts as social catalysts, Azzopardi has been campaigning for the creation of a National Theatre in Malta as well as the evolution of creative broadcasting on state television.