Fo has made a name for himself as a controversial playwright, actor and director. He often composes his own musical scores for his plays. Fo is also well known for his stage and costume design.

Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo

Fo and Rame married in 1954. Together they founded several theatre companies and she collaborated on many of his plays. As members of the Communist Party they were refused admittance into the United States twice. In 1973, Rame was kidnapped, tortured, and raped by a group of fascists to punish them for their political activism.

In recent years, working with Rame, Fo has dealt with women's issues in several plays, and together they have established a worldwide reputation for their biting satire in their writing and performances. Their strength is in the creation of texts that simultaneously amuse, engage, and provide perspectives Corruption in the Catholic Church and the Italian government, police brutality, abuses in the prison system, violations of human rights, the Mafia, rape, the denial of Italian women's access to divorce and abortion: Fo and Rame have made these dangerous political issues the subject matter of their theatre.

His best known plays include Accidental Death of an Anarchist, We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, and Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo. The Open Couple was written by both Fo and Rame.

Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997 for "emulating the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden."