Teresa Favi
(ph. portraits Massimo Sestini)
Tommaso Sacchi. Theatre is still theatre
The Pergola’s future, according to the President of Fondazione Teatro della Toscana
La Pergola was very active during the lockdown, wasn’t it?
It is the world’s oldest Italian-style theater, it could not stop. The light it kept on was a digital light through a TV channel, Firenze TV, which had already been conceived before the health emergency was upon us. We do not, of course, see it as a replacement for live theater, but rather as a complementary form, which kept a lot of people, both our season-ticket holders and theater lovers in general, good company.
What are you planning for the future?
We will be faced with great changes. Our new artistic director, Stefano Accorsi, will be taking over in January. We are working with him on the theatre’s new life, treasuring what has been done in the past few years, but also exploring new ideas: international relationships, more effective forms of communication, closer to the younger generations, by strengthening our theatre schools’ educational offer, and new connections with international institutions, from Paris and Theatre de la Ville to Greece and Spain.
What changes do you expect in the theater world after the pandemic?
The worlds of culture and show business will be severely hit by the crisis, but we are not going to get discouraged. We have realized that theatre is still theater even after the pandemic. It is still a very and extraordinary emotion-inducing experience. However, our country’s major theaters will have to embody the role of third-millennium institutions and become increasingly open to cultural contamination, reflection on diversity and social-political debate.
