“One hundred boys and girls who sing the story of Zeno, the holy fisherman. Forty teenagers tell of the signs we wear before we are born and after we die. Thirty young people go on a surreal journey in a city of people blind and sucked in by haste. ” These are the three stories that the Veronese schools will bring to the stage and to which the whole city is invited to attend and participate.

The project is included in the Educational program of the 2021/22 season of the Ristori Theater in collaboration with the production company Àissa Màissa, the Le Falìe Association and the support of the Cariverona Foundation. The goal is to spread the art of theater among children, adolescents and young people, allowing them to experience firsthand a workshop experience during the school year with the staging of an end-of-course show at the Refreshments Theater.

The proposed methodology draws strength from Alessandro Anderloni’s decades of experience in theatrical teaching work in schools, at all levels of education, first in Lessinia and then in many other realities in Verona, as well as in other provinces of Italy and abroad. In twenty-five years, more than five thousand children, adolescents and young people have been involved and brought to the stage by Anderloni, in institutions of all levels of education, from kindergarten to university.

Theater with schools, very different from the theater for schools, is characterized by a specific educational intent, intended as personal and social growth. The time we have lived, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, will leave profound marks especially on the new generations. This time of closure marked the paths of personal and group growth. The practice of artistic activities, of theater in particular, can dare to make a positive contribution both on an individual and group level, filling the need for awareness and expression of one’s personality.

The project was divided into theater workshops dedicated to primary and secondary schools of first and second grade. The workshops were conducted by Alessandro Anderloni assisted by a team of assistants reworking, together with the students, an original theatrical text, and adapting it to the type of group, the attitudes and topics of discussion that emerged during the workshop. The text brought will be staged at the Ristori Theater.

The program

Monday 23 May 2022, 8.30 pm

Primary schools Rubele and Maggi of the IC 18 Veronetta Porto

ZENO THE FISHERMAN

written and directed by Alessandro Anderloni

music by Alessandro Anderloni

Tommaso Sinigaglia accordion

assistant director Davide Parezzan

And if one day on the banks of the Adige, in the center of Verona, a fisherman came from a distant land? One hundred boys and girls sing and tell the story of Zeno, of his journey from unknown lands, of his arrival in the city of pink stones and the blue river, of the legends that were told about him from that day on. That fisherman became a saint, they called him San Zeno or San Zenone, but for all the Veronese he is “San Zen che ride”. His story is so similar to that of other Zeno that, centuries and centuries later, until today, they have come to this city to tell their stories.

Tuesday 24 May 2022, 8.30 pm

Fincato Rosani lower secondary school

WAITING ROOM

written and directed by Alessandro Anderloni

assistant director Stefano Vantini

Everyone has their own chair and waits for their turn to be born. In the same chair he will wait for that one to die. In the waiting room the king, the servant, the career woman, a nun, a “flower daughter”, a magician, the professor with his student, the ghost woman, a child, two enemy soldiers, a nurse and a disabled girl, father, mother and son, an infanticide, an Elizabethan actor, grandfather and his grandson. A story about before and after, about destiny and predestination, about the signs we carry before we are born and after we are dead.

Wednesday 25 May 2022, 8.30 pm

Art High School of Verona

THE WRECK OF THE MADTI

written and directed by Alessandro Anderloni

music by Alessandro Anderloni

Enrico Breanza guitar

Tommaso Sinigaglia accordion

assistant director Nicolò Bruno

scenography, costumes and graphic design of the scenography, costumes and graphics departments of the Liceo Artistico di Verona

Who am I crazy? The city of the healthy does not know their streets, does not hear their voice, does not recognize their scent. The city of normals can’t stand madmen and doesn’t notice that the wind is blowing up the sails of a ship that will take them away at night. On an ordinary day, in a city of blind people and enlightened by haste, two boys notice another city, with different times and with different eyes. And they become part of it, so much so that they embark on a journey with no return. Forty boys sing and tell a fairy tale today.

Participation is free upon booking Eventbrite at the following links: