Since 1956, when the first edition debuted, the Plautus Festival has been giving the City of Sarsina the art of Theater with its fifteen wonderful events.
The shows, which privilege the repertoire of Ancient Drama and Classical Theater, are welcomed in the evocative Plautus Arena. For the past two years, the Festival has also involved the Historic Center; in fact, six shows are staged in the small Lucio Pisone Square, adjacent to the famous Plautus Square, which, for the occasion, is transformed into an open-air theater, offering spectators the opportunity to visit the Historic Center and learn about the ancient history that belongs to Sarsina.
The protagonists of this edition will be Calvin, Machiavelli, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, Goldoni, Ionesco, Petrolini and, of course, Tito Maccio Plauto, the undisputed "father" of comedy worldwide. These will be joined by theatrical languages such as comedy, the Art of Mime and Fabulinus, the "Festival of Children's Theater in Sarsina" curated by Trame - Theater and Music.
All performances, both in Arena Plautina and Piazzetta Lucio Pisone, will start at 9:30 p.m.
Artistic direction by Edoardo Siravo.
⇒ Find out the full program of Plautus Festival 2024
When: Tuesday, July 09
Place: Lucio Pisone Square
This strange merchant has a bizarre mania: that of collecting textiles, haberdashery, singular objects, with which he likes to stage stories, as he can, on the spot. A wandering storyteller, he has traveled every corner of the world, discovering tales that he now likes to give to the little boys and girls he meets everywhere with one hope: to strengthen the feeling of beauty and friendship in their hearts.
Loosely based on "The Tale of Tales" by Giambattista Basile, a great classic of the 17th century.
When: Friday, July 12
Where: Lucio Pisone Square
The Stivalaccio Teatro Cultural Association, increasingly nationally recognized, will present a comic and tragic Decameron.
Narrating these episodes are three actors or rather buffoons, comedians, outcasts, people willing to do anything to trigger hilarity.
They will do so by using the art of buffoonery, that 15th-century mastery that later gave birth to the great tradition of the comedians of the Art.
When: Sunday, July 14
Where: Plautina Arena
A show intended for very different audiences in terms of age and education, linked to the motif of the forest as a place within which one gets lost in fear and courageously goes in search of oneself.
In fact, thanks to the imaginative power of figure theater (shadows, puppets, marionettes) and an evocative vocal and sound universe, the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood gradually comes to life. Ages: 5 and up.
When: Wednesday, July 17
Where: Lucio Pisone Square
A show for the whole family based on the famous work by Italo Calvino, which will make adults and children alike laugh, get passionate and reflect, conceived and produced by Arca Azzurra. On stage, to tell us about "his" Marcovaldo, Giuseppe Cederna, on the centenary of the birth of the great author.
When: Friday, July 19
Where: Lucio Pisone Square
Cristiano Roccamo stages a masterpiece of Italian Comic Theater of the 1500s. A work that bridges the gap between the genius of Plautus and the birth of that Theater that has made us famous in the world. This "staging" remains strongly linked to the original, and once again we laugh at human vices and deceptions.
When: Sunday, July 21
Where: Lucio Pisone Square
What would happen if we were all rich? It is in this utopia that Aristophanes' play "Pluto," named after a God who is as unspiritual as he is useful and concrete, is played. The blind Pluto is kidnapped by Cremilo, an Athenian peasant, so that he will stop lavishing rewards on the wicked and suffering on the honest.
It will happen in the story, that having cured Pluto's blindness, the money will be excessively distributed to everyone and that therefore work will become pointless.
When: Wednesday, July 24
Where: Lucio Pisone Square
A show composed of classics from the repertoire of Etienne Decroux, performed by a group of eleven students who will introduce the audience to the diversity of Mime and gestural theater.
When: Saturday, July 27
Where: Plautina Arena
A concert performance intended to be a tribute to the most famous quartet of the Italian stage and television from the 1940s to the 1980s: the "Cetra quartet."
The music, songs, and memorable parodies of the unforgettable Cetra Quartet are revived in this show by three exceptional performers who constitute an explosive concentration of bravura, sympathy, bel canto and drag the audience into the shining era of the great television variety shows.
When: Wednesday, July 31
Where: Plautina Arena
As is often the case in the Plautin world, in this play we find the need for laughter and the mask winning out over the story and the text.
When: Saturday, August 03
Where: Plautina Arena
A great classic of Latin drama, a comedy that remains a guarantee of pure entertainment.
When: Tuesday, August 06
Where: Plautina Arena
It is a grotesque comedy that, in Scaparro's intentions, wants to make us reflect on a complicated historical moment like ours, which has left deep marks in our consciences.
A hymn to life sung at the top of its lungs, a Lewis Carroll-esque metaphysical fairy tale, a frenetic, irrepressible and contagious macabre dance inside a grotesque but ruthlessly true microcosm, with feelings as exaggerated as they are deeply human. The music is by Maestro Nicola Piovani and the costumes by Santuzza Calì, two great internationally recognized artists.
When: Thursday, August 08
Where: Plautina Arena
Comedy both contemporary and traditional, with a surprise ending that will turn the tables. It is no coincidence that its author has often been associated with Plautus, the most modern playwright of all time.
When: Saturday, August 10
Where: Plautina Arena
First performed in 412 BC, the text is an example of a tragicomedy that revolves around the play of misunderstandings and in which the more properly tragic is less important.
When: Tuesday, August 13
Where: Plautina Arena
Sophocles' tragedy not only recounts the imperfect and marvelous complexity of human beings, but also reaffirms the right to welcome the stranger and respect the sacred laws of hospitality, reminding us that the world belongs to those who inhabit it and that the salvation of humankind does not lie in exclusion but in the "social chain" that produces solidarity and annihilates all selfishness, prioritizing the good of the community.
When: Saturday, August 17
Where: Plautina Arena
This brilliant Goldonian masterpiece tells the adventure of Mirandolina, at once servant and mistress of a Florentine inn. Mirandolina is an excellent innkeeper; today we would call her a capable woman-manager.
