Progetto Young, a training workshop for young actors and actresses, returns again in the 2024-2025 Season.
Strongly desired by Artistic Director Maria Grazia Panigada, who considers it an integral part of the activities
promoting prose theater curated by the Donizetti Theater Foundation, under the direction of Fabio Comana, the workshop is aimed at young aspiring actors, with at least two years’ experience in basic theater training.
The shared goal is to contribute to the initiation of young people into theatrical professionalism and to encourage a vision that is as open as possible to the future of theatrical art. In other words, it is not a matter of transmitting an already codified and pre-established idea of theater but, rather, of providing a set of elements so that each person can invent and experiment with his or her own idea of theater: anindispensable condition for the renewal of languages and the evolution of a theater capable
To speak to this ever-changing society.

Edited by Maria Grazia Panigada
Artistic director of the Season of Prose and Altri Percorsi.

THE HISTORY OF PROGETTO YOUNG

Progetto Young was born in 2013 from an idea by director Fabio Comana, to offer a higher-level training space for young aspiring actors/actresses with a solid basic theater experience. Thus, training paths were created leading to the realization of the shows Smart Green City inspired by Calvino’s Invisible Cities, The Sound of the Shell from Golding’s Lord of the Flies, performed at the Teatro Sociale in 2013 and 2014, Dining with Harlequin, an original itinerant show in the cloister of San Francesco, on the occasion of Expo 2015. In 2016, Maria Grazia Panigada chose to strengthen and expand the project, bringing it inside the Teatro Donizetti, considered the most appropriate venue for various training paths that include multiple disciplines of theatrical art. Thus, a workshop for playwrights was added to the actors’ workshop, and the idea was born to integrate basic training, conducted by Comana, with a series of monographic meetings with actors and directors guests of the prose season of the Teatro Donizetti, such as Cesar Brie, Marco Baliani, Maria Maglietta, Marco Martinelli. From this phase, the shows The Point of View (2016, Auditorium of Piazza della Libertà), Carnival Trial (in the spaces of the Teatro Donizetti for Carnival 2017), Labyrinths, performed in the summer of 2017 in an itinerant mode inside the former Monastery of Astino, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, an adaptation of the Shakespearean text for an itinerant performance in the woods of the Parco dei Colli di Bergamo, in September 2018, were born.

The students of the two-year period 2023-2024 have 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 entrance exams to three prestigious national academies (Piccolo Teatro School and Scuola Paolo Grassi in Milan, Teatro Stabile in Turin, and Accademia Nico Pepe in Udine, ) and – by now graduates – have begun their professional careers. But that’s not all: several Project 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.

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 September 22 at 12 noon.
The following week, those who have passed the first selection on the basis of curriculum will be invited to participate in a second one, on Oct. 8 and 9, 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, and interpretations of texts, a more direct and in-depth knowledge of the technical and human characteristics of the participants.
From this second selection the group of actors and actresses of the Young 2025-2026 project will come to life.

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Participation in the course, which will run from October 2025 to June 2026, involves a registration fee of 300 euros, which can be paid in one lump sum before the course begins or in two installments (first installment in October 2025 and second installment in January 2026).

READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT

SELECTED CANDIDATES

COURSE FOR ACTORS

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 for which 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 very beginning aimed at giving back to the city the fruits of their creativity by actively and recognizably participating in some significant events of the city’s cultural life. An indispensable element in the training of the young trainees will be shared viewing of scheduled shows and participation in meetings with guest artists of the Donizetti Theater’s Prose and Other Paths season.

Maria Grazia Panigada underscores the value of Progetto Young: “We are approaching a new edition of Progetto Young on the strength of 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.”