Giacomo Bisordi brings Il Prodigio to the stage, the debut novel by playwright Fabrizio Sinisi, received with critical acclaim, transforming it into a visionary scenic device that questions our need to believe. Rather than a straightforward adaptation, the work unfolds as a contemporary apocalypse in its original sense: a revelation. In the sky above a large Italian city, a face with rough, almost childlike features appears; at first an anomaly, then a presence, and finally an enigma capable of catalyzing collective desires, fears, and tensions.
Around this apparition, signs, healings, and inexplicable events multiply: projection, deception, or divine manifestation? At the center of this shifting reality are Don Luca, a media-savvy priest more accustomed to narrating faith than practicing it; Marta, an elusive and enigmatic figure; and Folker, a magnetic prophet able to capture the need for spirituality and transform it into a new, unsettling form of worship.
With his tense and lucid direction, Bisordi moves through the novel as through a book of visions, constructing a sequence of images, collapses, and apparitions that undermine any stable system of meaning. On stage, Gabriele Portoghese, Federica Rosellini, and Chiara Ferrara embody a universe suspended between desire, faith, and dissolution. Faced with the inexplicable, when every certainty wavers, what do we choose to believe in?
Chiara Ferrara, born in Rome in 1998, is an Italian actress trained at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts “Silvio D’Amico”, where she studied with Massimiliano Civica, Valentino Villa, Giacomo Bisordi and met Antonio Latella. Her ongoing collaboration with Latella is central to her artistic path: he selected her for his advanced training project BAT – Bottega Amletica Testoriana and for the productions Wonder Woman and Bùbaro dei Bùbari.
Alongside her theatre work, she has developed a career in audiovisual production, appearing in the short film Reginetta (2021), presented at the Venice Film Festival Critics’ Week. In film and television, she has taken part in productions such as Another End (2024), Zvanì – Il romanzo famigliare di Giovanni Pascoli (2025), and Il Dio dell’amore (2026).
Throughout her career she has received important awards, including the Mariangela Melato Award (2024) and the Virginia Reiter Award for Best Under-35 Actress (2025), as well as a nomination for the Ubu Prize.
Gabriele Portoghese graduated from the National Academy of Dramatic Arts “Silvio D’Amico” and began his artistic path under the guidance of Carlo Cecchi. Over time, he has worked with Andrea Baracco, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Giacomo Bisordi, Valerio Binasco, Ferdinando Bruni, Fabio Condemi, Fabio Cherstich, Gianluigi Toccafondo, Daria Deflorian, Giorgina Pi, Roberto Rustioni, and Federica Santoro, among others. In 2019 he played Hamlet, directed by Valerio Binasco. In the same year, together with Fabio Condemi, he co-authored the dramaturgy of Questo è il tempo in cui attendo la grazia (directed by Fabio Condemi).
In 2020 he performed the monologue Tiresias, from Kae Tempest, directed by Giorgina Pi (a production that won three Ubu Awards). In 2021, together with Giorgina Pi, he wrote Guida Immaginaria (directed by Giorgina Pi) and composed some of its music with Cristiano De Fabritiis. In 2023, together with Federica Rosellini, he co-directed the reading-performance Orgia by Pier Paolo Pasolini. For the University of Bologna he developed X Elettra (Elettra fatta a pezzi – oratorio per Elettra) based on Sophocles. Within the site-specific performance Termini. In una qualunque parte del pianeta, a project by Daria Deflorian, Muta Imago and Antonio Tagliarini, he conceived and wrote Preghierine. Noi vogliamo essere una faccenda leggera. In 2024 he acted in La vegetariana, directed by Daria Deflorian, based on the novel by Han Kang.
He received the Siracusa Press Award in 2017. In 2021 he won the Ubu Award for Best Performer, the Ivo Chiesa Award – Future of the Stage, and the Mariangela Melato Award.
Federica Rosellini, born in 1989, after studying singing and violin, graduated from the Piccolo Teatro di Milano School in 2011 and trained with Thomas Ostermeier and Antonio Latella. A performer, director, and dramaturg, she also specializes in dance and illustration. In 2023, one of her portraits was exhibited at MAXXI in Rome in the exhibition Straordinarie. Protagoniste del presente.
Working between cinema and theatre, she made her film debut with Alice Rohrwacher and gained recognition as the lead in Dove cadono le ombre, winning the Nuova IMAIE Talent Award at Venice 74. She starred in Confidenza (2024) by Daniele Luchetti and Campo di battaglia by Gianni Amelio, in competition at Venice 81.
In theatre, she has worked with directors such as Luca Ronconi, Antonio Latella, Andrea De Rosa, and Gabriele Russo, performing both male and female roles. She has received two Ubu Awards for Best Under-35 Actress, the Hystrio Award, and the Virginia Reiter Award. As a director and dramaturg, she was Associate Artist of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano (2021–2024). She has directed works for the Venice Theatre Biennale, Emilia Romagna Teatro, and the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto. Her recent works include Freaks (2024), inspired by Tod Browning’s film, and HildeKurt, about Hildegard von Bingen and Kurt Cobain. Her Carne blu won the 2022 Ubu Award for Best Set Design.
Giacomo Bisordi was born in Lucca in 1985. A director and dramaturg, after graduating in Biomolecular Sciences and Technologies, he earned a degree in directing from the National Academy of Dramatic Arts “Silvio D’Amico” in 2012. Since 2019 he has been a permanent collaborator of Milo Rau, dramaturg of his company International Institute of Political Murder and dramaturgy coordinator at NTGent, where he helps define the theatre’s seasons. He regularly collaborates with international institutions such as the Avignon Festival, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, and Wiener Festwochen.
As a director, he stages contemporary playwrights such as Fraser, Berkoff, Skinner, Birch, Crimp, Zeldin, and David Foster Wallace. Among his most significant projects are Peng by Von Mayenburg, La fabbrica degli attori based on Edoardo Albinati’s La scuola cattolica, and Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare. As a dramaturg, he has worked on, among others, ONE SONG and Delirium by Miet Warlop, Great Apes of the West Coast by Bangura, and The Interrogation, Antigone in the Amazon, La Lettre, and RAGE by Milo Rau.
IL PRODIGIO
dal romanzo omonimo di Fabrizio Sinisi
adattamento del romanzo Fabrizio Sinisi e Giacomo Bisordi
regia Giacomo Bisordi
con (in o.a.) Chiara Ferrara, Gabriele Portoghese, Federica Rosellini
e altri due interpreti in via di definizione
scene e luci Marco Giusti
costumi e scenografa collaboratrice Caterina Rossi
suono Dario Felli
production La Fabbrica dell’Attore – Teatro Vascello
in co-production Romaeuropa Festival and LAC – Lugano Arte e Cultura
