Thanks to the support of Regione Lombardia, and in particular funding from the Avviso Unico Cultura 2018 initiative, our library offers the public its catalogue of theatrical periodicals, a collection of approximately 200 Italian and foreign magazines, some of which date back to the Nineteenth century and others that are extremely hard to find in Italy. The collection is unmatched in Italy in terms of size, range and historical importance.

The catalogue, which has grown throughout our history, has more than one hundred titles, and includes scripts, information on national and international theatre life, reviews, critical writings and in-depth articles.

The main aim of the project has been to ensure the availability of a conspicuous collection of periodicals to students, scholars, enthusiasts and researchers, thus providing access to a theatre library collection of extreme importance in terms of quality and extent, all under one roof.

As well as the uploading of the titles into the Italian National Public Library OPAC, approximately 600 articles, chosen for their cultural interest (critical writings, specific focuses, reviews, scripts and interviews) have been scrutinised with particular attention to the history of the Piccolo, to our most celebrated productions, and to the founders Giorgio Strehler and Paolo Grassi.

The articles chosen offer a wide-ranging view of the history of the performing arts, customs and the media, and uncover many of the varied cultural events that, since the mid-1900s, have marked the evolution of our theatre in relation to the Milanese scene and the wider international context.

The many contributions that can be cited for their importance in the field of theatre study include:

• Vito Pandolfi, Vicende della vita e dell'opera di Brecht, «Sipario», I/1, 1946, pages 40-41
• Luciano Lucignani, Stanislavski, Shakespeare e realismo. Un esempio pratico di come il regista russo applicava il suo "metodo", tanto famoso quanto poco conosciuto, «Sipario», IV/43, 1949, pages 13-15 and 74-75
• Eligio Possenti, Le recite a Parigi del più grande attore italiano Ruggero Ruggeri. Miracolo dell'arte scenica, «Il Dramma», XXVI/112, 1 July 1950, pages 30-31
• Arturo Lazzari, Umanesimo di Brecht, «Il Dramma», XXXII/239-240, August-September 1956, pages 83-85
• Luigi Pestalozza, Regia e opera, «Sipario», XIX/224, 1964, pages 5-13
• Jan Kott, Teatro e letteratura, «Sipario», XXIII/264, 1968, pages 6-9
• Bernard Dort a colloquio con Peter Stein, «Sipario», XXVIII/320, 1973, pages 30-33
• Franco Perrelli, Incontrare Strindberg, «STILB», I/6, 1981, pages 21-30
• Ruccello. Una drammaturgia sui corpi [intervista], «Sipario», XLI/466, 1987, pages 70-74.

There is also a generous selection of articles by respected names, including:

• Eugenio Montale, La malattia del copione, «Sipario», I/2, 1946, pages 9-10
• Luigi Pirandello, Eleonora Duse, «Il Dramma», XLII/362-363, November-December 1966, pages 65-71
• Giovanni Testori, Io e Amleto, «Sipario», XXVI/299, 1971, page 29
• Dario Fo, Giù le mani dalla maschera, «Sipario», XLIII/482, 1988, pages 38-40
• Peter Brook, L'arte come veicolo. Il teatro di Grotowski tra ricerca antropologica e ideale artistico, «Sipario», XLIII/482, 1988, pages 54-55
• Franco Parenti, L’attore oggi, «Sipario», XLIII/482, 1988, pages 66-67.

In addition, there are a considerable number of contributions offering a closer examination of our theatre and its leading figures, including:

• Paolo Grassi, Una città italiana ha il “suo” teatro, «Sipario», II/14, 1947, pages 11-12
• Nico Pepe, Giro artistico europeo del Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Noi e loro con i Sei personaggi. Appunti di un attore, «Il Dramma», XXIX/179, 1953, pages 55-59
• Intervista a quattr'occhi con Paolo Grassi: "Siamo riusciti a non far fumare i Milanesi a teatro", «Sipario», X/110, 1955, pages 2-3
• Tullio Kezich (edited by), Il diritto di sbagliare. A colloquio con Giorgio Strehler all'indomani delle sue dimissioni dal Piccolo Teatro, «Sipario», XXIII/268-269, 1968, pages 27-28
• Giorgio Strehler, Ha un senso far teatro alla TV?, «Sipario»,XXVI/300, 1971, pages 16-17
• Giorgio Strehler, Un teatro nuovo per affermare la vita, «Sipario», XXXIV, 399/400, 1979, pages 3-9
• Flavia Foradini, Una ricerca ininterrotta di Strehler su Verdi, «Sipario», XLIII/489, 1989, pages 48-50.

The visual representation of a theatrical event, as a whole, is the result of complex creative processes. Embracing the concept of preservation, the aim of Immaginari visivi per un teatro di relazioni (Visual imagery for a theatre of relations) is to preserve and make accessibile thousands of images that document this activity, as well as related figures and organisations.

The project, the winner of Strategia Fotografia 2022, promoted by the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea at the Ministry of Culture, involved collaboration with the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, the CAeB Cooperative, the I-Crea Academy – Fondazione ITS, Soprintendenza Archivistica e Bibliografica della Lombardia. 

The project takes its cue from a series of key questions; what are the processes that, in the creation of theatrical memory, are brought to light, and which remain hidden, invisible to the means used for recording? How can records of activities within and external to the theatre, resulting from relations with other institutions, be protected and analysed?
Through an analysis of present conservation-related issues concerning historical photographic materials, we examined the forms, context and reasons for preservation. The aim was to preserve the documentary material while bringing forth the complexity and breadth of the items produced.
The principal task was to reorganise a section of the photographic archive, the personal Archive of Luigi Ciminaghi, examining both the physical aspects of the materials and their underlying narrative. Focus then shifted to an examination of the current activities of the organisation, studying possible ways to document the courses run by the Scuola di Teatro Luca Ronconi.

Luigi Ciminaghi and other theatres

The present-day practice of visual communication

The project is the winner of Strategia Fotografia 2022, promoted by the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea at the Ministry of Culture

The study focused on the materials from the Luigi Ciminaghi collection, for a detailed analysis of the challenges of preservation (environments and materials).

Microclimatic conditions were monitored over a twelve-month period with the use of data loggers linked to the eClimateNotebook® software (Image Permanence Institute), with the aim of increasing preservation systems with a view to criteria of environmental sustainability.

The work, which was carried out in collaboration with the restorer Silvia Berselli, provided for the reconditioning of the material relative to each shoot (negatives, contact sheets, slides, and enlargements of various sizes) using PAT (Photographic Activity Test, ISO 18916:2007) certified containers and materials, as well as the sampling of photographs to monitor their state of preservation.

Photographic material and conservation methods for film and prints were also analysed by the laboratory centre, a process that saw the participation of students from the Photo Cataloguing and New Media course at the I-Crea Academy – Fondazione ITS, Milan.
 

The full analysis of all 400 series from the Luigi Ciminaghi collection allowed for a wide-ranging study of the photographer’s output and creativity, as well as of the individual shows or events.

This approach shed new light on the processes involved in creating and selecting stage photographs thanks to the many marks made by Luigi Ciminaghi on contact sheets and other notes written on the original containers.

The process was carried out by CAeB (Cooperativa Archivistica e Bibliotecaria di Milano) in collaboration with our own historical archive. The photographic series was described in accordance with the guidelines of the ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) via the completion of the “F” datasheet on the SIRBeCWeb portal.
 

Luigi Ciminaghi (1937-2009) served as the official photographer for the Piccolo from 1964 to the death of Giorgio Strehler in 1997, documenting all the shows from initial table reads to the creation of the symbolic photos of important productions.

Ciminaghi represented the activities of the institution through his visual narration of press conferences, debates, conventions and meetings, in other words, the constellation of events that characterised the wide range of cultural expression

The focus of the activity was Luigi Ciminaghi’s personal archive, consisting of shoots by the photographer on commission; from those regarding Giorgio Strehler and his activities beyond the Piccolo (Gruppo Teatro e Azione, Teatro alla Scala, Théâtre Odéon, …), to projects regarding other Italian theatres (Teatro Stabile di Genova, Teatro Filodrammatici) and international institutions (the Royal Shakespeare Company, Robert Wilson), as well as private companies (Dario Fo). In addition, the work also involved a significant selection of portraits taken of actors, directors and artists from the world of Italian theatre (Giorgio Strehler with Valentina Cortese, Eduardo De Filippo, Milva, and so on).
The analysis of this material, which has remained unexplored until now, opens up new areas of study and further examination of the history of Italian and international theatre in the second half of the Twentieth Century. 
 

The construction of a show, the interweaving of processes, languages and relationships, was the focus of a project of collaboration between the students of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala and the Piccolo Scuola di Teatro.

Professionals and new creative communities worked together to study the various ways of “making theatre”, and on the methods used to record what is currently documented and preserved.

15 students from the Photo, Video and New Media course at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala followed the students of the Piccolo Scuola di Teatro to document the various stages in the preparation of the show for the end of the second year (Corso “Claudia Giannotti”), the play I pretendenti by Jean-Luc Lagarce, directed by Carmelo Rifici. Coordinated by Filippo Toppi, photography and video was handled by the students: Fabio Benato, Giulia Berruti, Gaia Capone, Vincenza Coppolecchia, Giorgia Di Lonardo, Lorenzo Gorini, Costantino Lodolo D’Oria, Mateo King, Greta Mianiti, Andrea Pella, Elia Pisani, Monica Ricci, Elisa Todeschini, Roberto Viccaro, Aliaksei Zuyeu

The play presented a number of challenges in terms of visual narrative; the story is based on a meeting of the members of a provincial directorate called for the handing over of power from the incumbent director to a new figure. The aspect of relations is central to the work, despite the suffocating repetitiveness of ceremony: the expectations of change are shattered in a claustrophobic self-replicating cycle. Actions are reduced to repetitions of exhausted dynamics, and to the presenting of forced and cruelly comical expressions.

The photographers and video-makers dove into this script of gestures and actions, documenting, day after day, the tiring process of embodying the characters; the relations between actors, students and teachers were documented within the complexity of a fluid space, in the breaking down of the boundaries between off-stage and on-stage. The images express the combination of promotional, documentary and narrative goals, revealing a rich variety of interpretations and points of view.

The project permitted the documentation of the production and the selection of images during the various stages of the creative process; this provided contemporary insight into the analysed processes regarding the Luigi Ciminaghi Archive. The concept of preservation thus examines new questions related to formats, metadata and preservation methods, as well as the traceability of the various paths taken by images in the fluid dimension of digital.

UNLOCK THE CITY! is an international culture-led regeneration project aimed at developing an integrated working method that combines technical scientific and design oriented research with theatre practice, making the latter a tool to trigger sustainable development processes in the post- pandemic city.

The programme takes place in six European countries (Belgium, Italy, Norway, the Czech Republic, Romania and Spain) and involves four theatrical institutions with a strong international presence (the Teatre Lliure of Barcelona, the Teatrul Tineretului of Piatra Neamț and the Toneelhuis of Antwerp, as well as the Piccolo), two expert academies of Performing Arts and theatrical programming (Østfold University College & Norwegian Theater Academy of Fredrikstad and The Academy of Performing Arts, AMU of Prague), as well as a university specialised in the study of the landscape (the Politecnico di Milano).

In each of the four “sample” cities (Antwerp, Barcelona, Milan, Piatra Neamț), urban areas or locations that played a key role for citizens during the pandemic have been identified, after which research is carried out to explore the concept of limits (economic, social, physical, etc.) within the urban landscape.

This research takes place on three different levels: community (subject), physical space (object), the relationship between theatre and urban area (relationship).

Over the course of three years (from 2023 to 2026), thanks to close collaboration between artists, theatre operators, students, university professors and experts (both local and international) on a range of disciplines, and therefore to the development of an integrated working method – in which theatre hybridises with scientific research – the project aims to develop activities regarding:

• an examination of the territory and a study of the post-pandemic city landscape;
• the creation and production of twelve performances by ten European artists;
• thematic workshops and educational courses aimed at university students. 

In Milan UNLOCK THE CITY! features three of our Associate Artists: Marta Cuscunà, Davide Carnevali and Sotterraneo, who develop their projects in the South-Eastern part of the city, in the areas of Corvetto, Nosedo and Porto di Mare, under the patronage of the Municipality of Milan. Two productions were staged during the 2023/24 season: Bucolica by Marta Cuscunà and Limited Edition by Davide Carnevali. The new production Dance Me to the End of the World by Sotterraneo is planned in the 2024/25 season. 

Together with these performances, a wide range of research, training and territorial activation activities, such as the international mapping workshop held in the spaces of Off Campus Nosedo-Politecnico (2-6 October 2023); the extended public Assembly The city looking at itself (27-28 October 2023), in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano, Centro Nocetum, Associazione La Strada, Terzo Paesaggio, and chiosco Da Giacomo; up to the Silbo Gomero workshops with the whistlers of Bucolica, in collaboration and in the spaces of the Municipalities 4 and 5 (on 10 November 2023 at Spazio BARONI85 and on 18 November 2023 at C.I.Q ​​| Zona 4).

UNLOCK THE CITY! has a single prime objective: to generate an increase in quality in terms of the habitability, accessibility and sustainability of urban spaces in post-pandemic cities through awareness-raising within and the active involvement of communities, organisations, and public administration.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE

For further information unlockthecity.eu

For the UNLOCK THE CITY! events in Milan

Gallery: 1-2 | Marta Cuscunà, Bucolica; 3-4 | Thomas Verstraeten, Seefhoek Series; 5-6 | Irina Moscu. here: melancholy; 7-8 | FieldworkLAB, international mapping workshop; 9-10 | Extended public Assembly The city looking at itself; 11-12 | Davide Carnevali, Limited Edition; 13-14 | Martha!tentatief, Honderd; 15-16 | Bodgan Zamfir, Fragments of Our Story; 17-18 | Anna Puigjaner, Històries de la cuina; 19-20 | CreativeLAB, Montjuïc, Barcelona; 21-22 | FieldworkLAB, Montjuïc, Barcelona; 23-24 | Every Person is a Museum, workshop di Bart Van Nuffelen; 25-26 | Intermediate Meeting, DAMU, Prague

 

of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, founded by Giorgio Strehler

Via Giorgio Strehler (previously Via degli Angioli) 3, 20121, Milan
+39 02 72 333 414 / +39 02 72 333 403
scuola@piccoloteatromilano.it
administrative offices: from Monday to Friday, 10 AM - 2 PM / 3-7 PM

Roberta Zanoli – Organizational Manager
Barbara Calbiani - Organizational officer for external activities, Public Relations, Tutor
Alessandra Lucioli – Library Manager, Tutor
Ruggiero Rovida - ATA Staff (Administrative, technical and auxiliary staff)

The physical body of words: notes for a one year journey

An immense and dimly lit room. Paintings hang on the walls. The Infanta Margret, Doña Maria Augustina de Sarmiento and Doña Isabel de Velasco, her dwarf and her mastiff… Don Diego is at the easel. There is a mirror there, at the end of the room, next to the door, which is ajar. Two figures emerge from the darkness, framed by a curtain... me? you? Of course not! Look closer; it is the Planet King and Queen Mariana of Austria. In 1966, Michel Foucault, intent on understanding the impossible and dizzying geometry of gaze and refraction created by Velasquez in his famous enigma Las Meniñas, uncovered the archaeology vital to setting out and orienting his philosophical study on the origins of human science, formulating a shocking antithesis – or hendiadys? –: “les mots et les choses”, words and things. This titanic clash - or insatiable embrace – is our point of departure.

Words and things. Having, last season, exhausted the examination of the relationship between reality and representation, after having concentrated on the rebus of existence, the Piccolo Teatro di Milano’s study of developments in theatrical experience at the beginning of the new millennium now, fatally, alights on the mystery of language. Having overcome the inclination towards the aphasia of so much New Theatre, having dominated the fascination for the splendid and dazzling tableaux of the late-Twentieth-Century Image Theatre – an extreme expression of the avant-garde, of happenings and the post-dramatic drift –, now at the dawn of the 21st century, theatre seems to be facing an impassioned and radical rediscovery of the word. “(1) In the beginning was the Word”, explained John, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) The same was in the beginning with God. (3) All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (4) In him was life; and the life was the light of men; (5) And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not”. Contemporary theatre is animated by a dense and visceral form of word; it is plastic, material, dynamic and tactile. It is to be savoured and modelled, sculpted and trained. A word that resonates in space. A word that takes form, becoming gesture and action, creating conflict. Besides, is it not also John who teaches us that: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”? Not an abstract idea or concept, but rather flatus vocis; a sigh that caresses and tickles, a flaying cry, laughter that coddles and taunts, a groan that leaves us soft and tender. The 2023/2024 programme for the Piccolo Teatro is a veritable “physics of the word”. A physics of the word, always ready to transform into anatomy. A detailed examination of the word and its varied theatrical uses and registers, its many possibilities. Its many forms and declinations. Reaching towards multiple horizons. Pushing towards distant latitudes. Flowing from tragedy to comedy. The theatrical word is, first and foremost, understood through its dialogue with literature, beginning with the grand mechanism of the novel, Bakhtinesquely nourished on history and philosophy, weapons and loves, courtesy and audacious trials. An endless era that embraces the living and the dead, and even music and poetry. The word is then explored on the more precise theatrical terrain of dramaturgy; from its classic form to its “critical” Twentieth- and post-Twentieth-century reinventions, driven by autofiction, citationist pastiche, didactic agreement, narration, documentary investigations and sociological portraits, as well as grotesque excursions into the absurd and into nonsense. Liberated from the more orthodox rules of grammar, the word then extends, multiplies and becomes more powerful, interweaving with other languages, and from a springboard for the gags of Goldoni’s “improvised comedy”, passes to representation, serving as a constituent cell and paradigm of choreographic expression. And beyond. Finally becoming a generative (and fatally transformational) matrix of performance and installation. A word that is, that grows, and that lives, as in the drama landscapes of Gertrude Stein. It is in the ekphrasis of the word that references the landscape that we reach what may be the most profound and genuine point of this gentle yet violent encounter with words. A secret and unnamed place that radically interrogates and questions us. “O flock at peace, O happy creatures, I think you have no knowledge of your misery! How I envy you!”, sang Leopardi’s nameless shepherd, as he wandered the endless high plains of Asia in the pale moonlight. In his animalesque essence as a wordsmith, where does mankind find his most personal and genuine nature? And what is the relationship between the so-called “Anthropocene”, or age of mankind, and language? Does the word annihilate or forge nature and reality? As in Armida’s enchanted garden by Tasso, in a dizzying play of reflections that is ideal as always when speaking of theatre, art and nature, words and things, have now, for us, become indistinguishable: “So with the rude the polished mingled was/That natural seemed all and every part, Nature would craft in counterfeiting pass/And imitate her imitator art.”
Claudio Longhi
 

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Image from the show Edificio 3. Storia di un intento assurdo by Claudio Tolcachir. Photo © Masiar Pasquali