from 18 to 29 July 2007

Arsenale, Venice

For the first time, a theatre festival will be hosting a Campus dedicated to university students from European and Mediterranean nations. The project, planned by the Biennale di Venezia and the Università Ca’ Foscari, will form part of the 39th International Theatre Festival - Goldoni and the new theatre, to be held in Venice from 18 to 29 July 2007.

Backed by the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Davide Croff, Goldoni and the new theatre will provide an opportunity to explore the roots and resources of modern theatre through the works of this great Venetian playwright on the 300th anniversary of his birth. The aim is to underline a European cultural memory, but also to stimulate new and free rewritings.

The Campus forms part of the development desired by the director, Maurizio Scaparro for the Biennale Teatro, who seeks to stimulate a lively rapport between theatre and the young in every form possible.

The Campus will be bringing together students from leading national and international universities, as well as from conservatoires and drama schools. A specific daily programme will be dedicated to them, curated by Carmelo Alberti and Pier Mario Vescovo, with workshops, laboratories, master classes, performances and shows structured in morning and afternoon sessions. An activity of investigation, or processing and comparison, therefore, which is added to and integrates with the festival events - with actors, directors, writers on the European scene, international experts and critics on Goldoni’s œuvre present at the festival or expressly invited for the Campus. Such as Silviu Purcarete, Jean-Claude Penchenat, Gábor Zsámbéki and Maurizio Scaparro himself, to mention just a few, all protagonists of events of an extraordinary value.

Launched in October, the project foresees the presence of about 1000 students and has already, with an extraordinary speed, enrolled over 500 students from 35 universities.

Alongside the rich Campus programme are the Festival’s evening shows, launched with the wish of stimulating new energy and new creativity with regard to Goldoni’s dramatic works. The Biennale di Venezia and its director, Maurizio Scaparro, have drawn in companies, directors, playwrights into a rewriting project around Goldoni, in the amplest sense possible, setting up European-wide projects in collaboration with theatres, festivals, national and international institutions. Adaptations, free transcriptions and absolute novelties – whether springing from the pen of dramatists and novelists or from the vision of a director – will characterise the majority of the festival’s shows.