Over 5,000 students from 30 schools in Bergamo and its province involved in watching performances and participating in individual projects: this is the first salient figure of the educational projects linked to the 2024/2025 Prose Season and Other Paths of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation. This figure confirms young people’s interest in theatrical expression in general and in the specific themes addressed by the titles in the program. During the 2024/2025 Prose Season and Other Paths, numerous educational courses were offered to secondary schools, alongside sound and lighting courses, which will take place in June, and the Young Project for aspiring young actors, which will culminate in an itinerant performance scheduled for June 7 and 8 in the spaces of the Teatro Sociale.

Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, adds: “The organization of the Foundation’s activities is very complex and articulated and is not limited to just offering performances but, thanks to a series of skills and professionals we can rely on, also includes educational initiatives within all our programs, such as the Prose Season and Other Paths, the Donizetti Opera festival and Bergamo Jazz; all activities that attract significant participation from young people and schools in Bergamo and its province. Young people, now more than ever, need beauty.”

For Maria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths, “attention to young people, both as an audience and as direct protagonists, represents an aspect of absolute importance in” the activity of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation and starts from the involvement of active realities in “associations: ‘What does’ a social garden or a food pantry have to do with a prose season? Why talk about hikikomori or civil responsibility in the theater? Yet these are among the themes we have addressed in our work with students this” year. We met them in the theater spaces, in classrooms, but also by going out into the territory to explore some representative places where active citizenship can be cultivated,” she says. “”I am convinced of the value of this osmosis between the internal space of the theater and the surrounding territory: I would like this aspect to increasingly become a key to interpreting our theater-making. I am also convinced that education is the heart of a” cultural institution like the Donizetti Theatre Foundation and, in this sense, it is our duty – in addition to “bringing young people closer to theatrical viewing, giving them critical tools to understand and evaluate it – to make them understand how” scenic action can be a space and time to reflect on oneself, on one’s social relationship, but also on the city, on the world in which we live.” “”The consequence of this work is finding oneself in the theater, before the performance, with a different attention, with a new care for listening and then, at the end, feeling the desire to confront, exchange opinions and perhaps take home new perspectives. I am therefore grateful to those who collaborate with me in the Educational Services and, in particular, to Maria Teresa Galati and Elisa Gambero who, with competence and passion, follow the organizational part and the coordination of projects. Over time, a group of professionals, educators, and actors has been created who share this educational approach with us. All this in the sign of teamwork where the skills and sensitivities of each become a common heritage,”” concludes Maria Grazia Panigada.

 

During the 2024/2025 Prose Season and Other Paths, the introductory meetings to the performances concerned L’“avaro”, L’arte della commedia and Anfitrione and were conducted by Erica Nava, Michelangelo Nervosi and Sara Pagani, former students of the Young Project, and by Stefano Benedetti, who provided fundamentals for understanding the performance. These meetings were complemented by those with Lucia Limonta and Marco Pacati on La coscienza di Zeno. Specifically for Other Paths, in addition to participating in dialogue moments with the companies, students had the opportunity to get to know the season guided by Maria Grazia Panigada herself, who introduced the performances and the work of the artistic direction and, finally, interacted with them to re-elaborate together “the experience. Some students from the” Maironi da Ponte Higher Institute in Presezzo then produced a text for each title of Other Paths in which they recounted the meaning that each performance represented for them.

THE PROJECTS OF THE 2024/2025 SEASON: A SUMMARY

ARPAGON: GOOD OR BAD TEACHER?
Project around the show The Miser, curated by Sara Pagani
The contemporary staging of Molière’s classic, with Ugo Dighero as the lead actor, has allowed for reflections on the figure of Arpagon, who despite all his flaws, can be seen as a model of ecology and frugality in stark contrast to the unbridled consumerism that characterizes the other characters.

THE FREEDOM OF ART IN THE GAME OF ROLES
Project around the show The Art of Comedy, curated by Stefano Benedetti
The Art of Comedy, seen at the Donizetti in March in Fausto Russo Alesi’s adaptation, is undoubtedly the most pungent and “Pirandellian” among the works of the great Eduardo. Through the lucid and merciless gaze of its protagonists, De Filippo’s text is above all a strenuous and very current defense of freedom of expression, which theater and artists should always enjoy. Alternating moments of text reading with reflections on its staging potential, the journey guided young spectators to view timeless events and characters, to demonstrate how, in the eternal duel between power and satire, laughter is still the most effective form of resistance.

BETWEEN REBELLION AND ESCAPE, OR AMPHITRYON AND THE GAME OF DOUBLES
Project around the show Amphitryon, curated by Erica Nava and Michelangelo Nervosi
The meetings related to the Teatro Kismet’s Amphitryon show investigated the construction of “identity in today’s world, where contradictions are more explicit and extreme than ever. The ability to build bridges between differences was therefore put to the test, in order to promote” inclusion on a substantial and not formal level, and an open-mindedness capable of analyzing events starting from Plautus’ narrative structure.

JOURNEY AROUND LA COSCIENZA DI ZENO
Project around the show Zeno’s Conscience, curated by Marco Pacati, Lucia Limonta and with the participation of director Paolo Valerio
The great themes of Svevo’s novel (brought to the stage at the Donizetti by Alessandro Haber from January 25 to February 2) were reinterpreted by the students starting from their own life experiences: the game of fate in emotional life, the figure of the inept, the “alternative” reflection on addictions, the father-son relationship in a “reversed” perspective, the apocalypse as a palingenesis of humanity, etc. The intervention of director Paolo Valerio was instead aimed at presenting the show and the scenic interpretation of the novel. In light of the high demand, it was necessary to add an extra performance of the show for students.

THE TRIALS – BETWEEN RESPONSIBILITY AND JUDGMENT
Journey around the show The Trials, curated by Ivo Lizzola and Silvia Brena
The last title of Altri Percorsi, The Trials, was at the center of the most significant and articulated project of the same series, thanks to the involvement of important local entities engaged in the environmental sector: Legambiente, Triciclo, Dispensa Sociale, Orti Sociali, Mercato agricolo and Mercato dell’usato di Monterosso. These collaborations contributed to the students’ experience by allowing visits, workshops, and practical activities. The active and participatory presence of director Veronica Cruciani allowed the students to learn about the process of constructing the show, facilitating the comparison between students from different schools on important issues, opening up a project on the theme of the climate crisis that will be carried forward also during the next Season, thanks to the valuable collaborations activated in the area.

YOUNG PROJECT – ACTORS COURSE
IF WE SHADOWS
Final show of the 2024-2025 workshop
The final show of the new edition of the Young Project, conceived by Maria Grazia Panigada and coordinated by Fabio Comana, who is also the director of the show scheduled for Saturday, June 7 and Sunday, June 8 at the Teatro Sociale, is titled If We Shadows.
If We Were Shadows is an itinerant performance – a walk through the corridors, halls, and other spaces of the Teatro Sociale – inspired by the ancient history of the place and the desire to engage in creating a sort of theatrical collage, representing brief original fragments that refer to characters from different eras and situations. It all stems from a suggestion: when the audience leaves the theater, when even the “last employee closes the door behind them and the hall plunges into” darkness, someone inside the theater begins to breathe. These are the characters from the many stories that the theater has seen represented coming to life. Freed from the constraints of the stage, but imprisoned in the space and time that the authors have decided for them, these characters are eager to meet and express themselves freely, sometimes to rebel.
The “event, repeated multiple times and reserved for small groups of spectators at a time, aims to offer the young people of Progetto Young, 15 individuals between 21 and 28 years old selected from 30 candidates, the” opportunity to put into practice the training path that began last October, during which they were able to meet various stage professionals, guests of the Prose Season and Other Paths, as well as young new professionals who were former Young members.
Actors involved: Francesco Baldin, Sofia Bolchi, Martina Citroni, Martina Di Caro, Leila Gervasoni, Beatrice Gotti, Carolina Grossi, Clara Marchesi, Matteo Masolini, Elisa Mercurio, Giulia Pizzaballa, Marta Salvi, Letizia Sanchioni, Valeria Spertini, Daniela Tasca.
If We Were Shadows will take place at the following times: Saturday, June 7th at 4:00 PM, 6:00 PM, 8:00 PM; Sunday, June 8th – 10:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 5:00 PM. The performance involves accessing some spaces via stairs.

COURSE FOR STAGE TECHNICIANS
curated by Alessandro Andreoli and Cristian Tasca, with support from Giulia Breno and in collaboration with Clay Paky
The Fondazione Teatro Donizetti chooses to enhance the theater’s workforce to bring young people closer to live performance professions, providing them with the basic skills to manage small theater venues. The courses consist of a theoretical part and a practical part, in order to bring the “student to directly know the tools provided and to interact with them in a direct and autonomous manner.
The courses will start on June 3rd and will see the participation of 16 young people (8 for each course) selected from 39 applications.
On one of the days, those enrolled in the lighting technology course will be guests of Claypaky, an international reference brand in the professional lighting systems sector. The day includes a visit to the museum and the production sector of the” company and a technical session with light designer Claudio Mazzucchelli.
Those enrolled in the sound engineering course will instead be guests of the 1901 Factory studio in Alzano Lombardo, which will open its doors to bring them closer to the “activities of a recording studio.
The courses will conclude with a” joint practical experience that includes the simulation and recording of a short live performance by the Bergamo-based band Nosedive, formed by young people between 17 and 20 years old.

 

The following have collaborated in the realization of the educational projects for the 2024/2025 Prose Season and Other Paths: Maria Teresa Galati (project assistance and organizational coordination), Elisa Gambero (organizational secretariat), Michela Gerosa (communication), Barbara Crotti (administration).