Organization: The theatre is one of Italy’s most important public theaters. It offers a wide program of guest shows including plays, musicals, ballet, pop and classical concerts. It also produces new shows for touring in Italy and abroad. The theatre has two halls: the main auditorium, 1500-seat and the studio theatre, 128-seat and hosts over 70 shows each season. Each season the theatre sells 100-180.000 tickets. Besides its producing activity, the theatre is particularly active in the guest performances field in the two theaters it operates in Trieste, hosting over 250 guest performances each year. Shows include plays, drama, ballets, contemporary dance, concerts and musicals. The companies arrive from the European Union, UK, the USA, Argentina, Israel and Russia. The theatre has a strong subscribers base, which generates approximately 50% of its total box office revenue. It recently organised a training course for puppeteers and developed a marketing platform for Customer Relation Management.

Project proposal: The project is based on the fact that puppetry is often the victim of a prejudice that considers it to be only for children or second-class theatre. We would like to build innovative ways for audience engagement and to mix traditional and contemporary puppetry. Another component of the project relates to the need to increase skills in puppetry because this type of theatre is not recognized at academic level in Italy.

Contact: Marco Marinuzzi, info@merakisrl.eu, www.ilrossetti.it