calendar

Sunday, May 31
@ Primavera dei Teatri, Teatro San Girolamo – Castrovillari

Armande sono io!

Armande sono io! is the first creation in a diptych that Ateliersi dedicates to Carla Lonzi, to be followed in 2026 by Taci, anzi parla. Through these two works, the company composes an autobiography of those years in which the personal truly became political: the life of a single woman — made of dreams, poems, and merciless reflections on her relationships — resonates with the lives of many others and becomes a mirror of an entire society unfolding around her.

Armande sono io! begins from Carla Lonzi’s final research on the movement of the Précieuses, which developed in France in the mid-17th century. The book of the same title, published ten years after her death in 1992 in Milan by Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, gathers three texts in which the author identifies the experience of the Précieuses as a central reference point for the women’s movement, together with the transcription of a long dialogue with Anna Piva from 1981 and notes from the notebooks she filled while working in libraries in close contact with primary sources. Although unfinished, the book is now considered the concluding work of Lonzi’s thought, a further chapter in the construction of feminist theory.

Convinced that theatre reflects real situations, the author seeks within the scenic experience that quality of relationships she also recognizes in life itself: the affirmation of one’s own eroticism, consciousness-raising, and self-legitimization of judgment, whenever “certain privileges are no longer granted to men.” Initially, she searched within the plots of classical tragedy, but it was through reading Molière’s Les Précieuses ridicules and Les Femmes Savantes that she found the condition she was investigating represented on stage. Lonzi writes: “They made me think of consciousness-raising; a multitude of coincidences astonished me. I recognize many aspects and traits as my own, and I think about the meaning of the group as the bearer of a new culture shaped by women’s contribution.”

By: Carla Lonzi
Concept and direction: Fiorenza Menni
Dramaturgy: Sara De Simone, Caterina Venturini, Fiorenza Menni
Historical consultancy: Lorenza Moretti
With: Fiorenza Menni and Luce Sant’Ambrogio
Music creation: Vincenzo Scorza
Voice of Armande: Sarah Saidi
Armande costume design: Umberta Burroni

A production by Ateliersi
Co-produced with Festival dell’Eccellenza al Femminile
In collaboration with Festival della Violenza Illustrata
With the support of the Ministero della Cultura, Regione Emilia-Romagna, and Comune di Bologna

Friday, May 29, at 9:00 PM
Artificerie Almagià

Fanny & Alexander
Storia del nuovo cognome
My Brilliant Friend in Comics – Volume 2

Based on the second volume of the graphic novel by Chiara Lagani and Mara Cerri (Coconino Press)
From L’amica geniale by Elena Ferrante (Edizioni E/O)

With Chiara Lagani and Fiorenza Menni
Drawings by Mara Cerri
Direction, lighting, video, and music by Luigi Noah De Angelis
Dramaturgy and costumes by Chiara Lagani
Multimedia installation by Voxel
Sound design and technical supervision by Gianni Gamberini and Vincenzo Scorza
Organization and promotion by Andrea Martelli and Marco Molduzzi
Administration by Stefano Toma

Produced by E Production and Ravenna Festival
In collaboration with Ravenna Festival
World premiere

Based on the second of the comic books inspired by Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, this work brings to the stage two actresses who are iconic figures of theatrical experimentation in Italy, Chiara Lagani and Fiorenza Menni, in the roles of Lila and Lenù. Now grown up, the two friends face new and difficult trials: the former struggles with an early and unhappy marriage, while the latter pursues her studies, the only possible path toward emancipation and self-determination.

Around the large collage created live by the two protagonists, the performance unfolds under the direction of Luigi Noah De Angelis. The story takes shape before our eyes through a kind of poetic accumulation of landscapes and characters drawn by Mara Cerri, which magically emerge from the comic book and come to life in a narrative that is at once a hymn to friendship, liberation from prejudice, and the power of imagination.

Info & tickets:
https://www.ravennafestival.org/events/storia-del-nuovo-cognome/

Saturday, June 13, 2026, at 8:30 PM
@ TeatroLaCucina | Olinda, via Ippocrate, 45 – Milano

Armande sono io!

On stage, Carla Lonzi’s feminist thought comes to life through the relationship between the 17th-century movement of the Précieuses and the works of Molière.

Armande sono io! is the first creation in Ateliersi’s diptych dedicated to Carla Lonzi. The performance takes shape from her final research on the movement of the Précieuses — 17th-century women whose choice of an original language to affirm their eroticism and autonomy of judgment closely mirrors the author’s feminist vision.

An actress and two writers share the stage, intertwining the history, desires, and conflicts of one woman’s life with the construction of feminism itself. On stage, the personal becomes political: individual experience resonates with that of many other women and becomes a reflection of society as a whole.

The original dramaturgy restores the depth of Lonzi’s research, exploring the value of relationships, collective experience, and women’s culture as forces for transformation. Music, costumes, and scenic composition complete a work that transforms thought and lived experience into an intense and contemporary theatrical event.

By Carla Lonzi
Concept and direction: Fiorenza Menni
Dramaturgy: Sara De Simone, Caterina Venturini, Fiorenza Menni
Historical consultancy: Lorenza Moretti
With Fiorenza Menni in the roles of Armande and Carla Lonzi
With Sara De Simone and Caterina Venturini appearing as themselves

Followed by a conversation with Carlotta Cossutta and the company

•••

Info & tickets > https://teatrolacucina.org/evento/armande-sono-io/