Virginia Raffele, Eduardo De Filippo, Pippo Del Bono, those ‘irresistible boys’ of Umberto Orsini and Franco Branciaroli. And again Marco Paolini, Emma Dante, Elena Bucci and Marco Sgrossi: these are just some of the names that make up the rich 2024/2025 Season of Emilia Romagna Teatro, built around important awareness. The first is given by a position: Ert’s first place among the National Theatres. The second from a number: the season just ended recorded a 21% increase in the public in Modena, counting 51 thousand 128 presences. We rise to over 160 thousand if we consider the extended Ert circuit, which also includes Bologna, Cesena, Castelfranco Emilia and Vignola. A number that we want to grow further: “This summer we will also redo the seats of the Storchi Theater so the public will be even more comfortable”, commented Ert director Valetr Malosti.
Armchairs aside, the bet is placed on a season that seeks to enhance and disseminate the cultural heritage, carried out without ever interrupting the dialogue with “the city, the territories and the communities that this theater inhabits”, in the words of President Giuliano Barbolini. Supporting him is the newly elected mayor of Modena Massimo Mezzetti: “My commitment as mayor will be to increase support for the cultural fabric of Modena. Investing more in culture means making a very specific political choice: my intention is to ensure that it is more central than in the past”.
Still on the subject of numbers, 32 shows including 9 productions, 11 co-productions, 12 guest performances and, among these, 7 world premieres and 1 national debut will animate the stages of the Teatro Storchi and the Teatro delle Passioni from October to May. Also for 2024/25 “Carne” continues, the focus on physical dramaturgy entrusted to the curatorship of the choreographer, dancer and associated artist Michela Lucenti, recent winner of the 2024 Ada d’Adamo Award. As in the two previous years, the calendar of events is intertwined with the season, to make the presence of dance and physical theater constant in the theater programs. For information on tickets and season tickets, go to the theater box offices during opening hours or visit the website www.modena.emiliaromagnateatro.com.
Opening – showcase Italia. A VIE Festival journey
The 2024/25 Season will open with the events of “Opening – showcase Italia. Un percorso di VIE Festival”, a focus on Italian creativity, starting with the national debut at the Teatro Storchi, from 17 to 20 October, of “Il svegliatura”, the new show by Pippo Delbono.
We continue with two appointments at the Teatro delle Passioni: on October 19th the return of “The Words of the Body” is scheduled, the physical dramaturgy masterclass conducted by the German choreographer and performer Hannes Langolf and Michela Lucenti.
And from 22 to 26 October, the production of ERT with Balletto Civile by choreographer, dancer and associated artist Michela Lucenti: “Les fleurs”.
At the Storchi Theatre from 25 to 27 October, “Come gli uccelli”: the masterpiece by the Lebanese playwright, director, actor and filmmaker naturalized Canadian Waijdi Mouawad, directed by Marco Lorenzi.
The shows at the Storchi Theater
On November 2 and 3, “Samusà” will be performed, starring the actress, Virginia Raffaele, a well-known and beloved face by the general public and Duse Prize 2022, directed by director Federico Tiezzi. The show is nourished by the childhood memories of the actress, who grew up in an amusement park by a family of circus artists.
From November 14 to 17 it is the turn of “La grande magia”, one of Eduardo De Filippo’s comedies that debuted in 1948 and that today is brought back to the stage by the director Gabriele Russo, starring Natalino Balasso and Michele Di Mauro.
After the success of the last Season, the exciting site-specific project “Teatro” by Cuocolo/Bosetti, a duo established in Italy and abroad, known and appreciated for their creations in undesignated places, “on the move” and intended for a few spectators at a time, returns. An ERT / Teatro Nazionale production, not included in the subscription, scheduled for November 22, 23, 24, 30 and December 12, 16, 17.
Valter Malosti, on November 29th and 30th, brings to the stage of the Teatro Storchi the Poemetti by William Shakespeare, “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece”, composed by Shakespeare when the London theatres were closed due to the plague.
Emma Dante will be on stage from 5 to 8 December with “Extra Moenia”, which means “outside the city walls”. The show tells the moments of an ordinary day in which a community wakes up, gets ready and leaves home to face the world.
2025 opens at the Teatro Storchi with two extraordinary interpreters and masters of Italian theatre: Umberto Orsini and Franco Branciaroli, on stage from 9 to 12 January directed by Massimo Popolizio in “The Irresistible Boys”, one of Neil Simon’s masterpieces.
Lunetta Savino and Andrea Renzi are instead the protagonists of “La madre”, by the Oscar-winning French playwright Florian Zeller. The play, on stage from January 23 to 26, investigates the theme of maternal love and its possible pathological consequences.
From January 30th to February 2nd, Massimiliano Civica brings to the stage the comedy that marked a turning point in Neil Simon’s career (three Tony Awards, a Golden Globe and several Oscar nominations): “Chapter Two”.
“The Rosmer House” is a drama composed by Henrik Ibsen that is still relevant today thanks to the author’s ability to analyze social, civil and political mechanisms that transcend time and illuminate the distortions of the present. From 13 to 16 February, an ERT co-production with Teatro Metastasio di Prato and Centro Teatrale Bresciano will be on stage with the historic duo composed of Elena Bucci and Marco Sgrosso.
“The Last Summer. Falcone and Borsellino 30 Years Later” is a project by Simone Luglio (Falcone in the Rai series The Mafia Kills Only in Summer), based on a text by Claudio Fava, former President of the Anti-Mafia Commission in Sicily but also a writer (I cento passi), and directed by Chiara Callegari, produced by ERT / Teatro Nazionale and staged on February 22.
From February 28 to March 1, the ERT co-production “Nel blu – Avere tra le braccia tanta felicità” will be performed for the first time, a new monologue of words and music by actor and author Mario Perrotta that explores the idea of happiness, taking inspiration from the figure of the great Italian singer-songwriter Domenico Modugno.
The calendar continues with an important co-production that sees ERT alongside Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, Teatro Stabile di Bolzano, Vanishing Point and Jolefilm: “Darwin, Nevada”, on stage from 13 to 16 March, the new project by Marco Paolini inspired by the life of the famous naturalist and the bestseller “The Nomadic Century. How to Survive the Climate Disaster” by the journalist, essayist and honorary researcher of the University College of London Gaia Vince.
Closing the season at the Teatro Storchi is Roberto Andò, theatre and cinema director, novelist and screenwriter. Andò takes on “Sarabanda” by Ingmar Bergman, in Modena from 10 to 13 April, involving a cast of great performers: Renato Carpentieri, Alvia Reale and Elia Schilton.
A special non-subscription appointment is with the Corrado Abbati Company, which on March 2nd offers “The Merry Widow”, one of the most popular operettas for its elegant and light-hearted plot.
The shows at the Teatro delle Passioni
“An Italian Show”, the new project by Nicola Borghesi, co-founder of the Kepler-452 company, created together with the Roman actor and author Niccolò Fettarappa, an ERT production with Agidì and Sardegna Teatro, will be on stage for the first time from 7 to 10 November.
From 10 to 22 December follows the premiere of the new show produced by ERT / Teatro Nazionale “Arlecchino nel futuro”, a farce about the future of humanity, set in a 2074 dominated by AI and characterized by the coexistence of humans and androids. Its award-winning authors are the writer-director Mariano Dammacco and the actress Serena Balivo.
Actress Elisabetta Pozzi, who has received numerous awards including four Ubu prizes and, in the film industry, the David di Donatello for her performance in Maledetto il giorno in cui ti t’ho incontrato (1992) by Carlo Verdone, is the protagonist of “Cassandra o dell’inganno”, on stage from 21 to 26 January.
ERT also this year continues and strengthens the collaboration with the Modena company Teatro dei Venti, which in the twentieth year since its foundation, presents three world premieres as part of the Edipo Project, from 11 to 22 February: “Oedipus Rex” (11, 14, 18 and 21 February) and “Antigone” (13, 16 and 20 February) from the tragedies of Sophocles and “Seven Against Thebes” (12, 15, 19 and 22 February) from Aeschylus, directed by Stefano Tè. The marathon of the three shows is scheduled for 23 February.
Fabrizio Falco, director and actor of theatre and cinema, winner of the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2012 and the Ubu Award for best actor under 35 in 2015, with “Molière uanmensciò (o come volete voi)” mixes stand-up comedy and narrative theatre to paint a multifaceted and entertaining fresco of the life and times of Molière, on stage from 27 February to 2 March.
“Letters to Bernini” is the new work by Teatro delle Albe, co-produced by ERT with Albe/Ravenna Teatro, on stage from 4 to 9 March. Written and directed by Marco Martinelli and starring Marco Cacciola, a monologue set in a single day, that of Borromini’s suicide, which tells the story of the Neapolitan architect-sculptor and his rivalry with the brilliant Ticino architect Francesco Borromini.
From March 18 to 23, Claudio Casadio’s acting sensitivity and Andrea Bruno’s graphic animation will contribute to giving substance to Francesco Niccolini’s text: “L’Oreste. Quando i morti uccidono i vivi”, a delicate show that addresses the theme of mental illness, denied love and abandonment through a re-enactment of the figure of the epic hero Orestes.
The season at the Teatro delle Passioni will close with the emerging director and actor Jacopo Squizzato, on stage in Modena from 1 to 13 April with “Scandisk”, the second panel of the trilogy Wordstar(s) by the Venetian writer Vitaliano Trevisan, produced by ERT / Teatro Nazionale.
