Shows

Ladies Football Club

Piccolo Teatro di Milano | Italy

Start Date: 19-09-2021 - 08:00 (07:00 CET)
End Date: 21-09-2021 - 08:00 (07:00 CET)

Ladies Football Club
By Stefano Massini

“The football pitch was not a football pitch, it was a strange place, both beautiful and terrible, where things that usually went unseen in the outside world took place in broad daylight”.

In Ladies Football Club, a theatrical rhapsody with the frenzied pace typical of Stefano Massini and based on the story of the first English female football team, the portraits of eleven women are brought to life on stage, each with a shared passion: football. It is 1917, the Great War is raging throughout Europe. In a munitions factory in Sheffield, a group of women workers begin kicking a football around during their lunch break. Faced with endless difficulties and all kinds of obstacle, the eleven women pursue their dream with unshakable determination, gaining public support and affection in the face of conventions and despite moral and religious ojections. But when the war ends, the men do everything they can to put their “rivals” back in their place...

“Through the eyes of each of the eleven women on the pitch—explains the director—we relive the thrill of the matches both won and lost, in which the result is not always the one shown on the scoreboard, and the true enemy is not always the adversary during the match”.

The actress Maria Paiato puts on stage the personalities, idiosyncrasies, dreams and fears of a team that’s as unstoppable as a hurricane. This new production by the Piccolo Teatro presents an all-women story, where the fight for the right to exist is (also) won through teamwork.

Language: Italian
Subtitles: English, Greek

Watch the video greeting here.

Ladies Football Club
by Stefano Massini

Direction: Giorgio Sangati
Stage design: Marco Rossi
Costume design: Gianluca Sbicca
Lighting design: Luigi Biondi

Production: Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa

On stage: Maria Paiato

Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d' Europa

Founded on 14 May 1947 by Giorgio Strehler, Paolo Grassi and Nina Vinchi, the Piccolo was the first Public Italian Theatre to be established and is the among the most important both in Italy and abroad.

In 1991, it was recognized as a “Theatre of Europe”, having been among the founding theatres, in 1990, of the European Theatre Union, a project created by Giorgio Strehler and Jack Lang. This significant recognition was followed in 2014 by the official recognition of its role as a “Theatre of Europe” by Italian Ministerial Decree, which brought both autonomy and responsibilities with it.

International by vocation, from the start of the new millennium and under the guidance of Sergio Escobar (Director of the Theatre from October 1998 to July 2020), the Piccolo broadened its horizons to encompass the Southern Mediterranean, the Middle and Far East, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa, in the name of a cultural project aimed at exalting a culture of diversity, which is the sole foundation for a true European identity.

On 1 December 2020, Professor Claudio Longhi was appointed director of the Piccolo. His goal is to further broaden the concept of a “Theatre of Art for All”, the original motto of the Piccolo. To this end, he is committed to involving young artists–playwrights, directors and actors—in future seasons, enhancing the international aspect of the theatre and embracing the concept of inclusiveness.

Over its seventy-four seasons, the Piccolo has produced 404 shows.

Since 1987, it has run a Theatre School − founded by Strehler, named after Ronconi, and currently directed by Carmelo Rifici − which has graduated 260 actors to date.