The Franco Parenti Theater, a creative laboratory in Milan.

From the Pier Lombardo Hall to the Franco Parenti Theater, fifty years of history

The founding of Teatro Franco Parenti dates back to 1972, when actor Franco Parenti and director Andrée Ruth Shammah, with Giovanni Testori, Dante Isella and Gian Maurizio Fercioni, created in the form of a cooperative the Salone Pier Lombardo, named after the Milanese street of the historic venue where the theater is still located today. At a time of crisis for permanent theaters, the stage of the Salone Pier Lombardo proposes an innovative idea of theater: a theater open to new Italian and international playwrights as well as to the reinterpretation of classics in a contemporary key, but also a hub of cultural life for the city and a venue for events on a national scale such as concerts, film shows, festivals and conferences. The guided tour starts from the very beginnings of this creative experience, tracing its most famous theatrical characters and titles – such as Testori’sTrilogy (Ambleto-Macbetto-Edipus), Molière’s plays or Testori ‘s I promessi sposi alla prova, all performed by Franco Parenti and directed by Andrée Ruth Shammah. It was in 1989, with the passing of Franco Parenti, that the theater took its present name, in honor of the great actor and now under the complete direction of the director who is still its artistic director and organizer.

Guided tour of the renovated historic headquarters

In addition to the history of this important Milanese stage, the guided tour also traverses the spaces of the Franco Parenti Theater, highlighting its uniqueness. It starts from the low foyer , the beating heart of the theater from which the various rooms branch off, organized on three levels to accommodate multiple initiatives and performances even at the same time. The renovation project, completed in 2008 and signed by renowned architect Michele De Lucchi, is all about the use of natural materials (wood first and foremost!) and the luminous dialogue with the city’s exterior. It is no coincidence that the intervention also involved the recovery of the entire Vasari Quarter within which the theater is located, created in the 1930s a few steps from Porta Romana as a functional space that included halls for fencing and boxing, neighborhood littoral organizations, a doctor’s office, a library, a printing shop, and finally the public swimming pools of theCaimi Bathing Center. The latter, which underwent a recent redevelopment in the years 2014-2016, now take the name Bagni Misteriosi. A magical place in Milan, of recognized historical value, the Bagni are the last stop on our guided itinerary: connected to the spaces of the Franco Parenti Theater, they host in the porticos, garden and Palazzina a rich series of cultural initiatives that complement the multifaceted activity of the theater itself. And after browsing through the spaces of Franco Parenti, it’s not over here: everyone in the hall… lights go down and the show begins!  

2022/2023 PROGRAMMING

Sunday, March 5, 2:45 p.m. – La Maria Brasca

by Giovanni Testori, a production by Andrée Ruth Shammah Famous title at Teatro Franco Parenti, all centered on one of Testori’s most daring female characters: the Maria Brasca, a worker in a hosiery factory in the Niguarda district, uninhibited in experiencing love who happens to fall in love with the younger Romeo. A plunge into postwar Milan through a powerful and contemporary theatrical text.

Sunday, April 16, 2:45 p.m. – The Man Who Darkened the Sun King. Life of Molière

Text and direction by Francesco Niccolini, with Alessio Boni, Alessandro Quarta In the tribute for the four hundredth anniversary of Molière ‘s birth that began in October 2022, this show in voice and music offers on stage the powerful, comic and tragic story of the greatest actor and playwright of seventeenth-century France: the son of a Parisian upholsterer who became immortal with his stage name, Molière, whose art came to overshadow even the fame of Louis XIV the Sun King.

Saturday, May 13, 5:45 p.m. – Will make day.

Comedy in two acts by Rosa A. Menduni and Roberto De Giorgi; directed by Piero Maccarinelli, with Antonello Fassari, Alvia Reale, Alberto Onofrietti A disenchanted and brilliant play about thesocial and political identity of our country: the three main characters are an old partisan, his daughter a doctor and former leftist terrorist, and a young fascist from the bourgeoisie. All three, in the generational and social dialogue that ensues between them, discover their own weaknesses and pride, and each learns and teaches.

Thursday, June 8, 7:30 p.m. – Cleopatras

By Giovanni Testori, a performance by Valter Malosti with Anna Della RosaCleopatràs is one of the last works signed by Giovanni Testori, belonging to the trilogy of the Three Lai in which the author reinterprets three classical figures (Cleopatra, Herodias and Mary): here Cleopatra relives in an Egypt reinvented in the topography of Valassina, a place dear to the writer, and in a lacerating monologue she regrets her Anthony, recounting the torments and redemptions of her existence.