Orlando Project, born from the encounter of a new generation of artists and a long collective effort spanning residencies, studies, and creative crossings, approaches Orlando Furioso as a narrative machine spinning out of control. It all begins with Angelica’s flight—an initial gesture that drags the characters away from war and into a constellation of detours, bewilderments, and sudden accelerations. In a setting that resembles the landscape of a freshly ended rave, amidst chaos, music, and an accumulation of preseries, the performance follows the poem’s centrifugal force all the way to Orlando’s madness and the famous journey to the Moon. Rather than a rewriting of Ariosto’s work, the piece reactivates its anarchic energy and formal freedom, bringing back to the forefront a masterpiece that continues to speak of desertion, desire, and the rejection of History.
The project was born within a core group of artists who graduated from the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi in 2022. For three years, the group met during self-funded residencies, guided solely by their own research and with the common goal of creating a performance at the end of the journey. From the very beginning, every member of the project contributed transversally to each phase of the show’s creation, each to the extent that they could or knew how. Actors, playwrights, and directors reinvented themselves as cooks, prop masters, organizers, and producers of an atypical and continuously evolving collective. They improvised as theater educators and researchers of Ariosto’s work, bringing themes and interests, studying, and sharing their knowledge with generosity and dedication.
Over the course of these three years, the group gradually structured itself around more precise roles, also opening up collaborations with professionals from different training backgrounds and fields. This journey eventually led to securing hospitality, residencies, minor financial support, and opportunities for public showcases of the project in site-specific contexts.
By choosing not to establish themselves as a defined collective or association, but rather to meet cyclically around a long-term project, the group remained fluid and continued to work together outside the usual production frameworks.
Today, Progetto Orlando is both the vessel and the content: the cradle of a nameless collective and the title of a show making its theatrical debut here at Romaeuropa. It is composed of 23 members including directors, actors, playwrights, composers, video makers, and technicians—men and women who went in search of Orlando and his lost sanity:
Leonardo Bertucci, Emma Bolcato, Febe Bonini, Paolo Brignoli, Davide Dal Vignale, Matteo Finamore, Domenico Fiorillo, Lorenzo Giovannetti, Valentina Mandruzzato, Pietro Micheletti, Camilla Morino, Leonardo Moroni, Lorena Nacchia, Elena C. Patacchini, Giorgio Pesenti, Caterina Rosaia, Giulia Rossoni, Alice Sinigaglia, Davide Sinigaglia, Antonio Somma, Francesco Toscani, Riccardo Vanetta, Vito Vicino.
Concept and direction Progetto Orlando
Text Alice Sinigaglia, Francesco Toscani, with the participation of Elena C. Patacchini
With Emma Bolcato, Matteo Finamore, Domenico Fiorillo, Lorenzo Giovannetti, Valentina Mandruzzato, Leonardo Moroni, Lorena Nacchia, Giorgio Pesenti, Caterina Rosaia, Giulia Rossoni, Alice Sinigaglia, Davide Sinigaglia, Antonio Somma, Riccardo Vanetta, Vito Vicino
Musicians on stage Paolo Brignoli, Davide Dal Vignale
Acting direction Matteo Finamore, Giorgio Pesenti, Alice Sinigaglia, Riccardo Vanetta, con la consulenza di Camilla Morino
Music direction Pietro Micheletti, Giorgio Pesenti, Davide Sinigaglia
Sound project Febe Bonini, Paolo Brignoli, Pietro Micheletti
Light project Leonardo Bertucci, Febe Bonini
Scene Giulia Bruschi, Riccardo Mainetti
Costumes Emma Bolcato, Domenico Fiorillo
Documentation video Camilla Morino
Communication Elena C. Patacchini
Organisation Giulia Rossoni, Alice Sinigaglia
Administration Caterina Rosaia
Acknowledgements Famiglia Patacchini-Fornarola, Comune e Pro Loco di Penne, Misericordia di Pimonte, Francesco Somma and with Comune di Pimonte, Luca Balestrieri, Roberto Somma (Villa Somma Apartment), famiglia Somma-Donnarumma, Cooperativa Azalea, Cooperativa Attivamente, Abitare-Generazioni, Architetto Bruno Rampoldi, Jacopo Boschini, Perry, famiglia Rossoni-Testori, famiglia Vigliani, Comune e Pro Loco di Griante, Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi, ATIR Teatro Ringhiera, Gli Scarti, Andrea Cerri, famiglia Sinigaglia, Gloria Clemente and il Coro Fabrizio De André, Istituto Scolastico Autonomo ISA 2 Giugno, famiglia Ciusa e Lucia Ciusa, Luigi Biondi, Eleonora Brioschi, Carola Invernizzi, Sofija Zobina, Mario Berretta, Emanuele Righi, Giuseppe Pipino, Enzina Cappelli, Opera Popolare, Lucia J. Zheng, Luca Righi, Alberto Sparapan, Samuele Migone
A production by Gli Scarti – Centro di Produzione Teatrale d’Innovazione
with the support of Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa and Romaeuropa Festival
