Progetto Young, the well-established training workshop for actresses and actors strongly desired by Maria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths of the Donizetti Foundation, and curated by director Fabio Comana, is back again for the biennium 2024 -2025. As usual, the workshop is aimed at young people between the ages of 18 and 26, with at least 2 years’ experience in basic theater training and a propensity for group work. To participate, applicants must sign the appropriate form attaching their resume no later than Sept. 24 at 12 noon: https://forms.gle/qVMKAyChUhogoMPN8. The following week, those who have passed the first selection on the basis of the curriculum will be invited to participate in a second one, on October 2 and 3, consisting of a collective practical test, in seminar form. The second selection, which will be conducted by Fabio Comana himself and will take place at the “Benvenuto Cuminetti” rehearsal room of the Donizetti Theater, will allow, through a series of exercises, improvisations, interpretations of texts, a more direct and in-depth knowledge of the technical and human characteristics of the participants. From this second selection will come to life the group of actors and actresses of the Young 2024-2025 project. Participation in the course, which will run from October 2024 to June 2025, involves a registration fee of 300 euros, which can be paid in one lump sum before the start of the course or in two installments (first installment in October 2024 and second installment in January 2025). The objective of Progetto Young is to contribute to the initiation of young people into an advanced level of acting, but also and above all to encourage a vision as open as possible to the future of theatrical art, to provide a series of elements so that each person can invent and experiment with his or her own idea of theater: an indispensable condition for the renewal of languages and the evolution of a theater capable of speaking to this ever-changing society. The training of actors and actresses has from the outset the goal of giving back to the city the fruit of their creativity, participating in an active and recognizable way in some significant events of the city’s cultural life. An indispensable element for the training of the young trainees will be the shared viewing of scheduled shows and participation in meetings with guest artists of the Prose and Other Paths season of the Donizetti Theater. Maria Grazia Panigada underscores the value of Progetto Young: “We are approaching a new edition of Progetto Young strengthened by past experience and the success of the show Vorrei che fosse amore, which last June featured 18 young people on stage with Cèsar Brie’s. Following their artistic and human journey for two years has been a source of encouragement for me on all that I accomplish within the Donizetti Theatre Foundation: I am sure that the next edition of Progetto Young will also bear fruit, confirming the vitality of our theater.”
A brief history of Progetto Young
Progetto Young was born in 2013 from an idea of director Fabio Comana, to offer a higher-level training space to young aspiring actors/actresses with solid grassroots theater experience. This led to the creation of the shows Smart Green City inspired by Calvino’s Le città invisibili, Il suono della conchiglia from Golding’s Lord of the Flies, performed at the Teatro Sociale in 2013 and 2014, and A tavola con Arlecchino, an original traveling show in the cloister of San Francesco, on the occasion of Expo 2015. In 2016, Maria Grazia Panigada chooses to strengthen and expand the project, bringing it inside the Donizetti Theater, which is considered the most appropriate venue for different training paths encompassing multiple disciplines of the theatrical art. The workshop for actors is then joined by one for playwrights, and the idea of integrating the basic training, led by Comana, with a series of monographic meetings with guest actors and directors from the Donizetti Theater’s prose season, such as Cesar Brie, Marco Baliani, Maria Maglietta, and Marco Martinelli, is born. From this phase come the shows Il punto di vista (2016, Auditorium of Piazza della Libertà), Processo di Carnevale (in the spaces of Teatro Donizetti for Carnival 2017), Labirinti, performed in the summer of 2017 in touring mode inside the former Monastery of Astino, and Sogno di una notte di mezza estate, an adaptation of the Shakespearean text for a touring performance in the woods of the Parco dei Colli di Bergamo, in September 2018. The students of the two-year period 2023-2024 produced two shows: Vaganti, staged among the spaces, also “secret,” of the Donizetti Theater, and Vorrei che fosse amore, directed by Argentine Cèsar Brie and performed at the Teatro Sociale in June 2024. As proof of the success of the project’s intentions, suffice it to say that as many as four actresses trained in Young have passed the entrance exams to three prestigious national academies (Piccolo Teatro School in Milan, Teatro Stabile in Turin, Nico Pepe Academy in Udine) and – by now graduates – have begun their careers as professionals. But that’s not all: several Progetto Young alumni have continued their involvement in provincial and regional theater, finding space in professional structures or creating new ensembles to open up spaces for artistic and organizational autonomy.
Full notice: https://trasparenza.teatrodonizetti.it/documentazione/bandi-aperti/ For more info e-mail info@fondazioneteatrodonizetti.org
