With the imminent start of a new Season of Prose and Other Paths of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, the educational projects connected to it are also getting underway, an important point of connection between the offer of shows and moments of reflection and in-depth study of the issues addressed by the shows themselves. Five projects will take place within numerous educational institutions, to which are added Progetto Young, intended for aspiring actors, two courses for stage technicians, a series of meetings around the show Re Lear è morto a Mosca and meetings for students subscribing to Altri Percorsi. More than 3,000 (from 17 schools in Bergamo and its province) overall are the requests from students to attend the Prosa and Altri Percorsi shows: an important sign of great attention to proposals that are articulated between classic texts and the more experimental languages of contemporary theatrical expressiveness. “The Municipality of Bergamo strongly supports all the activities of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, even more so if these activities are aimed at the growth of the new generations,” comments Sergio Gandi, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo, “A praise, therefore, goes to the Foundation and to the Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Altri Percorsi Maria Grazia Panigada for the commitment put into bringing them closer, with multiple initiatives, to the multifaceted, fascinating world of theater.” “In our activities we pay special attention to the involvement of the new generations, through initiatives that encourage participation in the performances and that take place in the same schools,” says Giorgio Berta, President of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, “Education is one of the primary objectives of the Foundation: it is an indispensable tool to make young people aware of reality also through art and to create an increasingly aware audience of tomorrow.” Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, adds, “Our institutional task is to promote a series of performing arts activities that are not, however, an end in themselves: the training projects promoted by the Foundation are therefore an invitation to a mature and conscious enjoyment of performing arts events that are in no way unrelated to the reality that surrounds us. The Donizetti Theater, and with it the Teatro Sociale, is the home of the people of Bergamo and must be even more so for the new generations.” For Maria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths, “The educational projects are the heart of the activity of our season, a suspended time in which to question our own and collective reality: they load the programming with meaning and open up avenues of reflection for the new generations who, through them, approach theater in its truest sense. Themes such as the generational relationship or the dimension of identity in relation to others will be addressed starting from the experiences of the children and then traversed through the words of dramaturgy and staging. In particular, the in-depth project will be dedicated to environmental issues, which, as in past years, will acquaint students with some of the realities and projects in the area that are dedicated to this field.”
“A separate discussion deserves Progetto Young, where young actors and actresses have been trained over the years. This year a new course will be launched with the excitement of seeing the students grow within our theater on a path of preparation for the profession. But also to the care of a reciprocity, because theater is a community action in which others, whether audience or colleagues on stage, are not an accessory, but an indispensable element for the performance to be accomplished,” Maria Grazia Panigada concludes. These are the projects that together constitute Il Cantiere del Teatro of the Prose Season and Altri Percorsi 2024-2025.
ARPAGONE: GOOD OR BAD MASTER?
Project around the play L’avaro, curated by Sara Pagani
The staging in a contemporary key of Molière’s classic (at the Donizetti Theater from February 8 to 16, 2025, in the performance of Ugo Dighero and other actors) allows us to open reflections on the figure of Harpagon, who despite all his faults, can be seen as a model of ecology and thrift in stark contrast to the more unbridled consumerism that characterizes the other characters. Director Luigi Saravo’s reading highlights the contrast between the old world tied to accumulation (and thrift) and the squandering of the new generations eager only to enjoy money. But which is the right path? Molière, does not give us answers, but like all great classics, prompts us to ask questions.
THE FREEDOM OF ART IN THE GAME OF PARTIES
Project around the play L’Arte della Commedia, curated by Stefano Benedetti
L’Arte della Commedia (at the Donizetti from March 8 to 16, in Fausto Russo Alesi’s adaptation) is undoubtedly the most pungent and “Pirandellian” of the great Eduardo’s works. Through the lucid and merciless gaze of its protagonists, De Filippo’s text is above all a strenuous and highly topical defense of freedom of expression, which theater and artists should always enjoy. Alternating moments of reading the text with reflections on its staging potential, the path will guide young spectators to the vision of timeless events and characters, and to show how, in the eternal duel between power and satire, laughter is still the most effective form of resistance.
BETWEEN REBELLION AND ESCAPE, OR ANFITRIONE AND THE GAME OF THE DOUBLE
Project around the play Anfitrione, curated by Erica Nava
The meetings related to the Kismet Theater show (at the Sociale on March 27 and the morning of March 28 for Altri Percorsi), will investigate the construction of identity in today’s world, where contradictions are more explicit and extreme than ever. The ability to build bridges between differences, in order to foster inclusion on a substantive and non-formal level, and an open-mindedness capable of analyzing events from Plautus’ narrative structure and the juxtaposition of seemingly unapproachable realities will be tested. How does one live today in a West of peace in the midst of a world of wars? Do activism, but not know who to vote for? Having a spirituality, but no longer believing in anything? Wanting to change the world, but not being able to get out of the bedroom? Changing the order of things is not easy, but it is what art does at its best.
JOURNEY AROUND LA COSCIENZA DI ZENO
Two projects around the play La coscienza di Zeno, curated by Marco Pacati, Lucia Limonta and with the participation of director Paolo Valerio
The major themes of Svevo’s novel (brought to the stage at the Donizetti by Alessandro Haber from Jan. 25 to Feb. 2) will be seen by the youngsters from their own life experiences: the game of chance in emotional life, the figure of the inept, the “alternative” reflection on addictions, the father-son relationship from an “upside-down” perspective, the apocalypse as a palingenesis of humanity, etc. The reflection will be conducted in an interactive mode, involving students and their youth culture. The intervention of director Paolo Valerio will be aimed, on the other hand, at the presentation of the play and the stage interpretation of the novel.
THE TRIALS BETWEEN RESPONSIBILITY AND JUDGMENT
Path around the show The Trials, curated by Ivo Lizzola and Silvia Brena, with the collaboration of Legambiente and Distretto Economia Sociale Solidale (DESS Bergamo)
Last title of Altri Percorsi, scheduled at the Social Theater on April 3 and the morning of April 4, The Trials, directed by Veronica Cruciani, offers the possibility of a path starting from students’ experiences and thoughts and is proposed as a space for reflection around the question of the environment, sustainability, poverty, around the new dimensions and forms of a responsibility to be expanded, anticipated; the question of justice between generations, the experiences of care, custody and cultivation of life and goods as gratitude and as an offer between communities and between generations; the logic of war, predatory economy, great inequality; the new technological power and the new ethical and political questions. Moments of reflection and opportunities to meet and visit projects and experiences (local and transnational) active on some of these issues will be activated. CULTURE IN DICTATATORIAL REGIMES: BETWEEN PROPAGANDA AND FREE ART
Project around the play King Lear died in Moscow
Dictatorships often use, in their subjugation of populations, the different artistic languages (cinema, visual art and music) instrumentalizing them for their own propaganda. Cèsar Brie’s play King Lear Died in Moscow, the opening title of Other Paths, staged at the Sociale on Dec. 19, shows how dictatorial regimes, in this case Stalin’s, fear cultural freedom, which is why the protagonists of Moscow’s Jewish theater were killed, ending an experience recognized throughout Europe. In the meetings, curated by experts in the individual fields, a reflection on artistic languages during dictatorships will be proposed with the aim of offering historical knowledge, but also of giving tools for decoding and reading about languages and the messages they can convey. The project is carried out in collaboration with ISREC – Istituto Bergamasco per la Storia della Resistenza e Dell’Età Contemporanea. THE EXPERIENCE OF ALTRI PERCORSI
curated by Maria Grazia Panigada
The Donizetti Theater Foundation offers a subscription to Altri Percorsi to high school students (which can also be subscribed to individually). Young subscribers will be offered an introductory meeting to the Season, in which the composition of the playbill and the reason for the choices will be explained, post-show moments with the artists and a discussion meeting at the end of the Season. PROGETTO YOUNG – COURSE FOR ACTRESSES
curated by Fabio Comana
Progetto Young, a training workshop for actors, returns again in the 2024-2025 Season. Strongly desired by Artistic Director Maria Grazia Panigada, who considers it an integral part of the promotion activities of prose theater, the course aims to contribute to the initiation of young people into theatrical professionalism and to encourage a vision as open as possible to the future of theatrical art. In other words, it is not about conveying an already codified and pre-established idea of theater but, rather, providing a set of elements for which each person can invent and experiment with his or her own idea of theater.
Prerequisite for the renewal of languages and the evolution of a theater capable of speaking to this ever-changing society.
These are the 18 young people selected for the new edition of Progetto Young: Francesco Baldin, Sofia Bolchi, Martina Citroni, Martina Di Caro, Sonia Galasso, Leila Gervasoni, Beatrice Gotti, Carolina Grossi, Paolo Invernici, Clara Marchesi, Matteo Masolini, Elisa Mercurio, Giulia Pizzaballa, Maria Salvi, Letizia Sanchioni, Andrea Sardo, Valeria Spertini, Daniela Tasca. COURSE FOR PALCOSCENIC TECHNICIANS
curated by Alessandro Andreoli and Cristian Tasca and in collaboration with Clay Paky
The Donizetti Theatre Foundation chooses to enhance theatrical workers in order to bring young people closer to the professions of live performance, providing them with the basic skills to manage small theaters. The courses consist of a theoretical part with reference to the notions of lighting engineering, audio, and stage machinery and, above all, a practical part, so as to bring the student directly acquainted with the tools made available and to interact with them directly and independently.
