Quartieri dell’Arte (Italy) is the main Italian new writing Festival. It is held annually in the Viterbo area and in Rome, run and conceived by a curating team led by Italian playwrights Gian Maria Cervo and Alberto Bassetti.
The QdA Festival has received international recognition for its own activities, the performance of the Italian, European and World Premieres of works by some of the most important Italian and international playwrights and the staging of unperformed or rare ancient plays (“Edward III” recently attributed to William Shakespeare, had its Italian language premiere at the Festival in 1998).The Festival promotes playwrights by staging their plays in venues which are renowned for their beauty (they include Medieval and Reinassance masterpieces such as the Palazzo Farnese, Caprarola, the Palazzo dei Priori, the Popes’ Palace and several former churches in Viterbo as well as traditional theatres and unusual natural and industrial spaces) and involves them in complex processes and transdisciplinary practices. QdA has created projects which aim not only at confronting but also at integrating dramatic and postdramatic elements and at investigating and experimenting new “hybrid” playwriting strategies.
Playwrights whose plays have been premiered at the Festival include Tony Kushner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Martin Crimp, Patrick Marber, William Mastrosimone, Marius von Mayenburg, Albert Ostermaier, Juan Mayorga, Oriza Hirata, John Bock, Fabrice Melquiot, Antonio Negri, Alessandro Baricco, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Davide Carnevali, Gian Maria Cervo, Letizia Russo, Vitaliano Trevisan, Magdalena Barile, Roberto Cavosi, Stefano Massini, Alberto Bassetti, Stefano Ricci & Gianni Forte, Luca De Bei, Fausto Paravidino, Tiziano Scarpa, Walter Siti. The Festival has introduced the works of international playwrights such as Roland Schimmelpfennig, Jon Fosse, Marie Ndiaye, Dennis Kelly, Roy Williams, Fritz Kater, Christophe Pellet, Peter Gill, Esteve Soler, Doug Wright, Alan Ball, Will Eno, Manuela Infante, Craig Wright, Craig Lucas, Dael Orlandersmith, Adam Rapp, Nassim Soleimanpour in Italy.
QdA has created productions hosting eminent figures of Italian theatre and culture, such as Academy Award nominee Giancarlo Giannini, Academy Award winners Vittorio Storaro and Gianni Quaranta, philosopher Antonio Negri, director Franco Zeffirelli, novelist Alessandro Baricco.
The Festival was a partner of the Royal National Theatre London, the Burgtheater Vienna, the MEEC Paris, the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester and the Narodni Divadlo Prague in Intertext a project which took place from 2002 to 2008.
QdA created “EU Collective Plays!” a large scale cooperation project which won a grant from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union for the 2015-2019 period.
Now in its 20th year the Festival keeps developing new projects with several globally known and international partners and writers which include the Hermitage State Museum, St. Petersburg, La Fura dels Baus, Barcelona, the Zetski Dom Theatre, Cetinje, the KHIO, Oslo, the FOPSIM Malta, Prime Cut Productions, Belfast, Forteresse, Bruxelles the Prigov Foundation Berlin.
In 2011 La Repubblica Italy’s main newspaper called “Quartieri dell’Arte” “the Silicon Valley of playwriting”.
EU Collective Plays Project!
co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union aims at promoting the creation of plays which are the result of a collaboration of playwrights of different nationalities. Playwrights meet and cooperate to create a narrative structure which is organic but at the same time incorporates different perspectives, styles, languages and idioms. In each playwrights’ collective the assembling of the final draft of the play is normally entrusted to one playwright who must never try to homologate the different styles but, on the contrary, must try to highlight their contrasts by creating a narrative structure which resembles a cubist painting. The result of each artistic process in a playwriting collective is the creation of an inclusive, polyphonic play. The European Showcase of Collective Plays also aims at promoting the production of polyvocal plays through the creation of transnational theatre groups. Because of their inclusive, polyphonic, dimension (mix of pop and cultured elements narrated by different languages and idioms), the plays created within the European Showcase of Collective Plays have a complexity which entails the creation of transnational theatre companies for their staging. Priorities of the European Showcase of Collective Plays include:
-promoting international cooperation between playwrights and theatre organizations of different nationalities in the creation and staging of collective plays in order to internationalize and/or strengthen their international reputation, careers and activities at a European and global level;
-testing an enlargement of theatre audiences by the diffusion of narratives characterized by “internal dialogism”;
-stimulating the interest of audiences in European creative works by enlarging the idea of European citizenship through polyphonic plays;
-testing new forms of manageable transnational theatre groups and productions;
-staging showcase of Collective Plays within an important European Festivals.
Collective Plays commissioned and developed directly by the TSAM within the EU Collective Plays! Project and the Quartieri dell’Arte Festival
Freetime
by
Gian Maria Cervo
The Presnyakov brothers
Narcissus
by
Alberto Bassetti
James Bidgood
Michel Marc Bouchard
Gian Maria Cervo
Chris Goode
Antonio Ianniello
Anna Romano
Hybrid Plays- a Cultural Translation Project in cooperation with Allianz Kulturstiftung aims at the “cultural translation” within Europe: In a series of workshops new hybrid theatre techniques will be developed with the aim to create theatrical forms that through their intercultural perspective comply more strongly to the European identity of the citizens.
What happens when an Italian playwright is asked to translate in cultural terms the work of a Norwegian playwright by exchanging its Norwegian setting and characters into Italian- for example Sicilian- ones? The involved partners will experiment with such questions by creating hybrid plays that merge national and personal perspectives.
Three junior playwrights rewrite the work of senior playwrights: Joele Anastasi (Italy) rewrites Jon Jesper Halle (Norway), Jovana Bojovic (Montenegro) rewrites Gian Maria Cervo (Italy) and Agate Øksendal Kaupang (Norway) rewrites Dejan Dukovski (Macedonia).
Subsequently, theatre makers and performers are invited in the context of several workshops to experiment with the hybrid plays and multilingual practices. Thereby a greater awareness of new intercultural theatre practices shall be developed. In the long term, theatre productions shall result from the workshops that can then be presented to a larger audience.
Project partners: Festival Quatieri dell’Arte (Italy); Outis, Centro Nationale di Drammaturgia (italy), Ass. Cult. Nutrimenti Terrestri (Italy), ATCL, Associazione Teatrale fra Comuni del Lazio (Italy); Zetski Dom Theatre (Montenegro); KHIO, Kunsthogskolen i Oslo (Norway)
Project location: Rome, Milan, Viterbo (Italy), Cetinje (Montenegro), Oslo (Norway)
Workshop activities at the Festival include:
Quando il sale non era l’unico fiore. Joele Anastasi’s rewriting of Jon Jesper Halle’s “Lilleskogen”. Demonstration for the audience 29th September at the exChiesa di Sant’Egidio, Viterbo. The experimentation is entrusted to emerging director Benedetto Sicca whose opera and theatre work has recently been seen at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Festival della Valle d’Itria, Les Halles Schaerbeek and the Teatro Stabile di Napoli.
Slobdno Vrijeme ili Tamno Je Svijetlo and Slobodno vrijeme II ili Elegantna umjetnost rewriting materials of “Il tempo libero” di Gian Maria Cervo. This represents a side, parallel experiment to the development of the play “Il tempo libero” commissioned to Gian Maria Cervo and the Presnyakov brothers within the EU Collective Plays! Project. Demonstration for the audience 1st October at the b&b A Piazza del Gesù, Viterbo and at the Studio Ascenzi, Viterbo. The experimentation is entrusted to emerging director Carles Fernandez Giua whose work has recently been seen at the Schaubuehne Berlin, the Grec Festival Barcelona and the Quartieri dell’Arte Festival.
Hvem faen startet alt dette? (Styrtende Stillstand) a free version by Agate Øksendal Kaupang of Dejan Dukovski’s “Who the Fuck Started All This?”. Demonstration for the audience from 7th October to 10th October at the MAT Viterbo. The experimentation is under the direction of theatre and opera director Alessio Pizzech whose work has been seen at the Spoleto Festival, Pontedera Teatro and the Teatro Metastasio di Prato.
Shakespeare Lives is an unprecedented global British Council programme of events and activities celebrating William Shakespeare’s work on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his death in 2016.
It is an invitation to the world to join in the festivities by participating in a unique online collaboration and experiencing the work of Shakespeare directly on stage, through film, exhibitions and in schools.
It will run throughout 2016, exploring Shakespeare as a living writer who still speaks for all people and nations.
The Festival is pleased to announce that the following QdA productions will be part of Shakespeare Lives:
Pericles, Prince of Tyre by William Shakespeare with Gower’s monologues rewritten by Vitaliano Trevisan. Directed by Lorenzo D’Amico De Carvalho. Vitaliano Trevisan’s language mixes with the lines of more ancient Shakespearan translators in this version of the Bard’s most multiethnic play, related to the figure of Godfrey of Viterbo.
A coproduction between TSAM and the Festival Quartieri dell’ Arte, the Teatro Stabile d’Abruzzo, the Festival dell’ Aurora Crotone and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia -National Film School Rome. EU COLLECTIVE PLAYS!
The production will be staged on 7th September in Largo Vittoria Colonna, Viterbo where the house of Godfrey of Viterbo stood.
Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Directed by Davide Sacco. In this production Macbeth is portrayed by 14 year-old actor Renato Palazzotto.
Premiere at the Complesso di Sant’Agnese, Vitorchiano, Viterbo on 10th September.
Waiting for Philip Glass by Wendy Wasserstein. After the sonnets of William Shakespeare. In cooperation with the Scuola di Teatro e Perfezionamento Professionale del Teatro di Roma.
Italian premiere at the Caffè Schenardi on 14th October.
Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson. Directed by Alessio Di Clemente. Homage to Giorgio Melchiori
Italian premiere at the Complesso di Santa Maria in Gradi Viterbo on 16th September.
Fashion for Theatre brings some of the most interesting fashion brand and designers in Europe in the theatrical creative process
The project hosts for its 2016 edition the following fashion designers, brands and collectors:
Serge Bensimon
Anton Giulio Grande
Edithmarcel
Giano del Bufalo
Progetto Carlo Vincenti (VescoVI)
The Festival celebrates Carlo Vincenti, renowned visual artist, poet and thinker from Viterbo, 70 years after his birth and nearly 40 years after his death. Carlo’s eclecticism is celebrated through both philological and surprising events.
The following productions are included in the project.
The Colour of the Sun by Andrea Camilleri and Gian Maria Cervo. Directed by Franco Eco . EU COLLECTIVE PLAYS!
World premiere at the Scuderie del Bramante Sallupara Viterbo on 24th September
A coproduction between TSAM and the Festival Quartieri dell’Arte, the Festival dell’ Aurora Crotone. In collaboration with the Scuola di Teatro e Perfezionamento Professionale del Teatro di Roma.
La ragazza che faceva l’autunno by Francesco Salerno. Directed by Stefano Pastore.
World premiere at the Rinascimentiamo Gallery Viterbo on 28th October
Fratto C., da ‘Pipistrello di lusso’ e altri frammenti. Texts by Carlo Vincenti. Performance devised by Fabio Vincenti and Alfonso Prota
World premiere at the ex chiesa di Sant’Egidio Viterbo on 28th October