International Shows & Exhibitions

Teatro del Drago / Coppelia Theatre / Hombre Collettivo

The Monticelli family is an art family active in puppetry sector since the first half of the 19th century. Today with the name of Teatro del Drago, acquired in 1979, the brothers Mauro and Andrea (who share the company’s management with Roberta Colombo), represent the fifth generation of the family, continuing an artistic trend based on the language of both puppet and traditional (glove-puppets in shack) and contemporary theatre (puppets, shadows, animation on sight). Since 1979, the productions of the Teatro del Drago have been hosted both in Italy and abroad, in winter and summer seasons. Since 1982, Teatro del Drago has been one of the few Italian companies to bring its shows all over Europe, thanks to the fact that the Puppet Theater is, by its nature, an international language that overcomes language barriers, or as Otello said Monticelli at the beginning of the twentieth century “these are shows suitable for everyone from 5 to 95 years without age, sex or religion barriers”. 

As Teatro del Drago, in the last years we also promote the distribution of shows by other young companies we collaborate with. That’s the case of All’InCirco Teatro, which actually became part of Teatro del Drago itself in the last years, Coppelia Theatre, Erika Salamone and Hombre Collettivo – all awards winning, promising new companies of Italian puppetry.  

For informations please contact: 

Sarah Bonomi –compagnia@teatrodeldrago.it
direzione@teatrodeldrago.it

Exhibitions

La Collezione Monticelli

200 years of Italian Puppet History, marionettes, glove puppets, manuscripts , sceneries  and various tour documents to tell the History of Italian puppetry in the north of Italy,in which grew the life of an art family.

Puppets tell… 
40 years of Teatro del Drago

A visual dramaturgy capable of linking the thirty-seven shows made in recent years, designed and produced by Andrea and Mauro Monticelli and theirs collaborators, a sign of an evolution of great historical and evocative importance. Starting from the heritage of ancient materials from 1840 to 1950 exhibited inside the Museo La Casa delle Marionette, the exhibition is enriched by posters and materials of tours regarding Ravenna in the 1950s, the moment in which the Monticelli family moved from the Parma area to the Byzantine city. In the central section of the exhibition, instead, we will enter the heart of the least forty years through the enchanted world of Figures in clay and gauze, in wood and papier-mâché, fabric and paper, traveling from set to set, traveling the literature of the Brothers Grimm, Tolkien, Saint Exupéry, Bram Stoker, William Shakespeare, Apuleius, Homer: myths, legends, reworked stories that, thanks to
constructions, scenic materials, sculpture and painting, tell the universe of puppetry, in its fascinating complexity, and its relationship with the contemporary imagination.

    1. Italian Traditional Glove-Puppets Shows

    • For age 5 to 95
    • Italian, English, French
    • Suitable indoor and outdoor

    Mauro and Andrea Monticelli use the traditional puppets of the Emilia-Romagna region to create energetic, dynamic and witty shows. Their ability to write jokes with a play on words makes their performances enjoyable for everyone, whether you are five or ninety-five years old! 

     Their scripts feature stories that have been in the theatrical family for eigth hundred years. The stories are based on old fables and tales of wisdom that allow them to be very creative and expressive in thier work. The stereotype that comes with the art of comedy hides what this company really represents. The puppet shows can be shown in any place, such as outside in a square of a town centre. This is due to the fact that the company has a portable puppet theatre which enables them to be independent and restricted technical effects.

    2. Early childwood

    Teo has got curious ears

    by Roberta Colombo and Andrea Monticelli in collaboration with Arianna Sedioli

    • Without words
    • Target 2+

    Teo is a bunny whit long and curious ears. He likes to listen and to photograph. His day is a swing between what he feels and what he sees. It’s very susceptible to all the sounds he encounters: the ringing of an alarm clock, the sound of the pee, the crunch of the cookies, the singing of birds, the roar of the bus, the lapping of the waves. Comfortably seated on the couch, Teo listen his favourite music, indulging the pleasant melodies of the piano. In his bedroom, when it’s bedtime, savor the memories of his day full of sound that finally ends in the sweet silence of the night.

      Tina & Gigi

      with Andrea Monticelli, Roberta Colombo, Mariasole Brusa
      Original music by Gianluca Palma, Francesco Maestri and Andrea Napolitano

      • Without words
      • Target +20 months

      Everything starts from a small dot of light. Tina, Gigi, Rita, Ignazio and Ninè take shape from him, An elephant, a tiger cub, a turtle, a mouse and a piglet. All very different in appearance, color, personality but for this reason great friends. Together they play 1-2-3 star, hide and seek and one day they find a seed, they don’t quite know what it is but they take care of it and life is born from it. Tina & Gigi, is a small journey to discover friendship, geometry, the beauty of diversity and the enrichment that derives from them.

      New work by Teatro del Drago dedicated to early childhood, born from the pencil of the illustrator Andrea Rivola. The geometric shapes, the color, the sound add up and complete each other giving a very linear and simple interpretation that makes the show inclusive and designed to awaken the attention and curiosity of the very young (from twenty months). Tina & Gigi are a violet elephant and a yellow and black tiger cub, but also a square and a circle. Thus all their friends: Ninè, the piglet (triangles, semicircles and squares), Ignazio, the Mouse (triangle), Rita, the turtle (a set of circles and semicircles), are born from the composition of geometric shapes. The scenography is very freely inspired by one of the fathers of abstract art: Piet Mondrian.

        3. Contemporary Puppet Theatre

        Pinocchio

        A musical fantasy for puppets and actors

        images by Alain Letort
        indian ink drawings coloured by Gianni Plazzi
        actors Roberta Colombo, Mariasole Brusa, Flaminia Pasquini Ferretti, Gianluca Palma, Andrea and Mauro Monticelli

        • Without words
        • Suitable for all ages

        The Company’s show is based on the images created by ALAIN LETORT, a French artist who paid tribute to the famous wooden puppet by producing 12 Indian ink drawings to which colours were later added by GIANNI PLAZZI.

        The staging of this version of “PINOCCHIO” is based on the layout of these 12 drawings. The plot reflects the characters in the drawings, such as Geppetto, the Cat and the Fox, the Fairy, Fire-eater, etc., thus creating independent “pictures and scenes”, rather like a collage that tells in pictures the famous story by Collodi. The whole show is performed in the centre of the stage which is sparsely adorned with a succession of simple and essential sets, such as THE DOOR, THE PUPPET THEATRE, THE TREE, THE CIRCUS, and so forth.

        In this same space the actors move about, accompanying the puppets in a rapport of “visible animation” that in recent years has come to form an integral part of the style and expression of the company. The four actors thus become the basis of the stage action, as though they also had physically stepped into that colourful circus which is the story of PINOCCHIO.

          Fagiolino Golden Donkey

          directed by Renato Bandoli
          written by Francesco Niccolini
          decorations by Michela Bellagamba
          scenery by Monticelli

          • Italian, French
          • Suitable for all ages

          Typically a show of various arts, whether it is for the visual impact that brings back the period of the 1800s, or whether it is for the structural scenery and “choreography”, of disorganised ambulant artists. The simple comedy is one of the elements that ties the three different genres which scandalise the show: “The theatre of puppets”, the antique art of “singing whilst storytelling”, the “game room ” of the “street artists ”, and not to forget, “the improbable acrobatics” of the scenes. 

          The inspiration of this “maledestra” is “the golden donkey” by Lucio Apuleio, lover of magic and experienced writer whom unfortunately for him had tripped over in the theatre of  Zambutèn, “burbero e benefico” seller, joker and dealer.

            Prospero’s Magic Circle

            • With subtitles

            … “Prospero, the sorcerer” …
            “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
            and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
            A Tale, the Tempest, transformed into a series of poetic images, and an interplay of actions that expand into a huge painting by Chagal. The late 19th century Russian painter was of fundamental help in the creation of our Tempest; belonging to the pictorial movement of Oniric Fauvism with the accent of Strong Colors of Expressionist painting, Chagal, is well suited to our contemporary puppetry. The supernatural images develop and follow each other in the show, to create a series of poetic and dreamlike actions / visions. We followed the text by W. Shakespeare solely as a general outline, giving a little more space to images and music. As in Chagal’s paintings, we see men and women gliding “upside down”, spaces where gravity and proportions do not seem to exist, even in our puppet theater, the characters do not have a horizon, a physical plane on which to move on. Ships fly in the sky, in the clouds!

              Ecomonsters’
              Puppet Show

              by All’InCirco Teatro

              • Without words
              • Target 4+
              • Suitable for street and theatre

              “There are no broken objects, if they stop serving a purpose,… just change the purpose”.

              In his secret laboratory Doctor SpUtnik, aided by his robotic assistant Laika, is undertaking the greatest feat of his career as a pataphysical scientist: creating life from matter! Or rather, give scrap. Between explosions, improbable experiments, short circuits and bickering Sputnik and Laika will not give up. Thus the objects, assembled to form bizarre, unpredictable, sometimes disturbing, robotic creatures, will finally have the opportunity to tell their story: Marie, a perturbing dancer with a doll’s face and a tin body; the strongman Newton with a scale instead of a belly, Doopler musician record player, MikyMoka with a coffee pot instead of a head; Quirk, Quork and Quark, the wind ducks; Pavlov the Wireless puppy. Sputnik, Laika and their string puppets, built entirely with recycled materials, will take the public on an amusing, surprising, sometimes perturbing journey, where the laws of physics are distorted and everyday life becomes extraordinary.

                Born Ghost

                Azzurrina’s Legend

                co-production ERT | Emilia Romagna Teatro
                dramaturgy, performer Mariasole Brusa
                puppets, scenes Jlenia Biffi
                video artist Cosimo Miorelli
                original music Stefano Bechini
                light designer Gianni Staropoli

                • Witj subtitles
                • Target 14+

                A black show, at times frightening, but also moving and delicate. A poetic reflection on diversity and isolation that, through figure theatre and video art, stages the Legend of the ghost of Azzurrina, the daughter of Costanza Malatesta and the feudal lord Uguccione, who disappeared in 1375 under mysterious circumstances in Montebello, in the province of Rimini. The girl was a ghost, in any case, already a ghost in life: she was discriminated against because she was albino and locked up in the castle by her own family. A tragic and dreamlike story about differences, which then as now are always frightening, but it is also a hymn to freedom, which is in itself a fight against ignorance and prejudice.

                Casa Nostra (Our Home)

                directed by Riccardo Reina
                with Angela Forti, Agata Garbuio, Riccardo Reina, Aron Tewelde
                in collaboration with BRAT and Associazione Malerba
                Scenario Infanzia 2020 award
                Direction Under 30 2021 critics award

                • Without words
                • Visual theatre – objects theatre
                • Target 14+

                What we pretend to fight outside us, is already inside us, inside our everyday life, also if we are not aware of it.
                R. Scarpinato – Italian magistrate

                23 September 2021: Palermitan Assizen’s sentence on the State-Mafia negotiation process brings back to our mind a piece of the past. A piece of the past which, however recent, it’s already history. A piece of history which, however decisive, already risks falling into oblivion with all its paradoxes and contradictions. A fundamental piece to understand the puzzle of our present time. A piece that has been tried in every way to hide, alter, ignore: a missing piece.
                Casa Nostra is not only a title and a pun which put together the most famous Italian mafia (Cosa Nostra) with the idea of a private and secret place (“casa nostra” in Italian means “our home”): ours is the home we are inhabiting today with all the things it contains. Ours, we want it or not, is that strange thing we have inherited from the former tenants. Ours is the playroom in which we have been locked up, where children are left while “the grown-up” deal with the serious things, those things that children are better not to hear, not to see.
                Casa Nostra wants to investigate the recent history of Italy starting and taking as a reference the years of the State-Mafia Negotiation, also in the light of the recent judicial news and trying to retrace the fatal years between 1990 and 1994. These years have been decisive to understand not only the current state of Italy: they also determined the current international role of Italy and of Mafia in the world. Those were the years when Cosa Nostra could have been definitely destroyed, thanks to the brave work of the Italian magistrates, many of which lost their lives to fight against the Mafia. But, instead of fighting it until the end, the Italian State – mainly in the persons of Premier Silvio Berlusconi and his right-arm man Marcello Dellutri – decided to treat and cooperate with the Mafia. This caused a very strong transformation and infiltration process in the Mafia, which brought it to have a very important role in Italian as well as in international politics, economy, and illicit trafficking.