A vital element of the activity that has the Donizetti Theatre as its city reference point is prose. It should be noted that in 1953, alongside the Theatre of New Musical Features, the Teatro delle Novità di Prosa (Theatre of New Prose), directed by Enzo Ferrieri.
The administration’s policy in this field (the search for popular audiences, concessions to the working classes, invitations to the student population) confirmed its validity; indeed, season tickets increased every year, the number of encore performances grew, and the “demand for theatre” rose. Collateral events (meetings with actors, critical analysis of texts, etc.) were often combined with the performances in the Theatre and in schools and were accompanied by publications (yearbooks for prose seasons – also known as “Quaderni dello spettacolo” (“Notebooks of the show”) – and Single Publications for the opera and the Donizetti Festival). In terms of the number of theatre subscribers and the number of encore performances, the Donizetti was one of the most active Italian theatres as far as prose was concerned.
The initiative called “Altri Percorsi” (Other Performances), which started during the 1980-1981 season and proposed alternative performances to those consolidated in the official season, was interesting, especially for a type of audience curious about an experimental way of doing theatre.
