TEATRO KISMET

Teatro Kismet - From Small Co-operative to International Theatre Company

The theatre company was formed in 1981 as a small co-operative of touring actors under the direction of Carlo Formigoni formerly a student of Brecht's Berliner Ensemble. The name Kismet comes from Sanskrit and means 'positive destiny'. The past twenty five years has seen the company grow to become an internationally acclaimed company; an umbrella for a diverse range of artistic projects and productions. In 1988 Teatro Kismet opened its own cultural centre in a large industrial space in the city of Bari. The company produces its own theatre for this space and to tour both in Italy and abroad.

Teatro Kismet also manages and programmes the beautifully restored 18th century Teatro Rossini in the small Puglian town of Gioia del Colle and the Teatro Traetta di Bitonto. For six years Teatro Kismet has produced Gioia del Colle's annual arts festival for young audiences, Maggio all' Infanzia.

Productions: Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends

The company is well known for creating theatre which is genuinely cross generational in appeal; which works on several levels and is thus equally stimulating for both children and adults. The company frequently uses fairy tales and legends to explore the conflicts and fears which arise as part of the process of growing up. Five times Teatro Kismet has won the prestigious national Stregagatto award for most significant production for young people, for Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio, a co-production with Nottingham Playhouse directed by Martin Duncan, Little Mysteries, a special theatre piece about the making of bread, created for pre-school children, and Beauty and the Beast written and directed by Teresa Ludovico, an internationally acclaimed production which toured for five years until 2006. In 2003 Teresa also wrote and directed an adult production of the Mesopotamian legend Gilgamesh, the first story known to mankind, which was presented at festivals in Italy, France and the UK.

The company has also developed a reputation for its adaptations of classical work. Marco Martinelli created an adaptation of Plautus' Miles Gloriosus and  Aristophanes’ The Birds which toured some of the Mediterranean's most atmospheric archaeological sites. Director and writer Teresa Ludovico has pursued her research into myth at Teatro Kismet. As well as Beauty and the Beast and Gilgamesh, she also wrote and directed an adaptation of Euripides' Hecuba and Her Children, introducing a classical chorus of women from the local community of Gioia del Colle, a project which was repeated in a prison for women in Bari and in three towns in Albania, using local Albanian women as the chorus. Teresa also co-led a theatrical study of Attar's The Conference of the Birds, working with Alain Maratrat, formerly a trainer for Peter Brook's company. The project led to a version for young audiences called Wings of Dust, which became the focus for a series of workshops with performing arts students from Adelaide led by Teresa in the Australian outback.

Education, Social Work and Theatre by Disabled Artists

This important area of our work has included theatre studies for young people, teachers and artists; workshops and European theatrical exchanges for socially disadvantaged people; and an influential programme of work created with and by learning disabled people, which has led to three original theatre pieces for disabled actors. One of these productions, Vangelio, based on Pasolini's film The Gospel According to St Matthew, was presented at the European convention on culture and health “Culture et Hopital” held in Strasbourg in 2001. More locally in Bari, Kismet has constructed a theatre in a prison for young offenders, with the prisoners touring their productions to festivals and to other prisons in Italy.

Broken Spaces was an international project using theatre, creative writing and web technology to explore the themes of immigration and emigration and involved young people from Italy, England, France and Australia. The project was undertaken in collaboration with Nottingham Playhouse and Théâtre Athénor of St Nazaire. Rossana Farinati has continued to pursue her research into theatre for early years and as well as the award winning Little Mysteries, has also devised a second production for this age group themed on origins, Che Accada! (Let It Be).

Recent and Current Projects

Teatro Kismet recently collaborated with Birmingham Rep and the Comédie de Valence on a European Project, Through the Woods, creating an original production for young audiences, themed on the relationship between children and the generation of their grandparents as well as themes of cultural diversity. The production was devised through a series of workshops led by Kismet artists Rossana Farinati and Lucia Zotti, and British playwright Sarah Woods. The production toured in all three countries.

Lucia Zotti and Monica Contini, two actresses who have been with Teato Kismet since the company's beginnings, have recently devised two new pieces for children: A Present for Quicha, a musical storytelling based on a traditional New Zealand tale, and an original work Stories of Witches.

Teresa began a major Hans Christian Andersen project in 2005 including a production of The Traveller's Companion in Bari, performed by 30 learning disabled people. She wrote and directed a new production of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen for Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo. This co-production with Kismet featured a cast of Japanese actors and musicians and opened in Tokyo in August 2005, prior to a Japanese tour as part of the official celebrations for Hans Christian Andersen 2005, celebrating 200 years of the Danish writer. Teresa has also directed an opera for children, Il Principe Porcaro, based on Andersen's tale of The Swineherd, originally composed by Nino Rota when he was only 13 years old. Nino Rota is best known for his compositions for the films of Federico Fellini and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. The opera premiered in Bari on 10 December 2005 and will be presented in the UK in June 2007 in a special collaboration with Birmingham REP and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO).

This European production of The Snow Queen was developed in Bari on Teresa's return to Italy, and was co-produced by the Athens Festival where it premiered in June 2006. The production features founder actor Augusto Masiello and has enabled Teresa to form a new ensemble of young artists drawn from Italy, France and Switzerland. This UK tour forms part of a European tour for The Snow Queen and a further tour is already being planned for Autumn 2007 - Spring 2008.

For more information, please visit the company's Italian website www.teatrokismet.org.

For UK and International touring enquiries or for further information in English please contact the company's UK-based producer Judy Owen via email:
judy@kismet.fsworld.co.uk

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