CThere are incredible stories that have remained locked in books or in the folds of memory for too long. Stories that are now being told again, one after the other, under another guise: the stage lights. In the second part of the 2025-2026 season, Indeed, the theater seems to be crossed by the same current: novels, testimonies and texts written by women writers become stage material.
The writers redesign the theater of 2026
The one that reopens after the holidays will therefore be a billboard, in which the theater will tell the past as a lens to observe what continues to repeat itself: violence, imposed silence, the desire to survive. It is not a simple editorial trend brought to the stage, but the desire to reread the world, history and power relations through voices that were able to tell them with clarity, conflict and complexity.
Othello by Dacia Maraini: when the classic stops protecting
To give the meaning of the words said so far, the inauguration of the billboard will be with a rewriting by Dacia Maraini of the Shakespearean play “Othello”from which the writer removes any residue of romantic ambiguity. The killing of Desdemona, in fact, is no longer an excess of passion, but the predictable outcome of a violence that feeds on control and possession. The text digs beneath the surface of the drama to show its structure: a woman killed because she exists within the gaze of a man who considers her his. The direction is by Giorgio Pasotti, who also plays Iago next to James George in the role of Othello. After the preview at the Veronese Summer Theater, the show inaugurates the January 13th the season of Carignano Theater in Turin.
The 2025-2026 theater season celebrates women writers and their narratives, bringing great novels, new dramaturgy and reinterpretations of classics to the stage
Elsa Morante and Adania Shibli, the war seen by those who never win
If Othello brings private violence to the stage, “The story” by Elsa Morante And “A minor detail” by Adania Shibli they tell the collective, stratified one that crosses generations. The first text returns to the stage in a new adaptation directed by Fausto Cabra who rediscovers its original strength on stage: a narrative that rejects the epic and entrusts the story of the conflict to those who remain crushed by events and continue to live on the margins of History with a capital letter. Scheduled at Franco Parenti Theater in Milan from 14 to 26 April. Dryer, almost implacable, is the text by the Palestinian writer that Massimo Luconi brings to the table India Theater in Rome from March 11th to 15th. Set in the summer of 1949, in the aftermath of the Nakba, the “catastrophe” for the Palestinian people, the show works on what is removed, on an apparently secondary fact that becomes an open wound.
Han Kang, the body as a battlefield
Many of the texts on the bill they also pass through the female body as a site of conflict, resistance and transformation. He is at the forefront on this front Daria Deflorianactress and director, who in the spring stages two works linked to Nobel Prize winners for Literature. “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang, a powerful and uncanny portrait of the body, desire and refusal, will be al Grassi Theater in Milan from 10 to 19 Aprildirected by Deflorian herself who interprets the text with an ensemble of actors, restoring the complexity of Yeong-hye and her radical metamorphosis.
Annie Ernaux at the theater in a double version
At the Grassi Theater, also in April but on the 7th and 8th, Deflorian will also propose “Memoir of a Girl” by Annie Ernauxa staged reading that blends narrative and music, exploring the desires and tensions of a lifetime. From Ernaux itself was born “Look at the lights, my love”dramaturgical adaptation of Michela Cescon together with the translator Lorenzo Flabbi. In this text, the hypermarket, a daily place of shelves and neon lights, becomes a formidable mirror of contemporary society that reveals inequalities, relationships and solitudes. The show will be presented at Carcano Theater in Milan from March 19th to 22nd.
Yasmina Reza and Suzie Miller: when the word unmasks the system
The social discomfort and institutional violence emerge forcefully in texts that have already crossed the great international stages. “Carnage” by Yasmina Rezataken up by Andrea Zavatteri, uses the form of ferocious comedy to dismantle the hypocrisy of the cultured bourgeoisie, showing how civil language is often just a mask. The text will be on stage at Gobetti Theater in Turin from January 13th to 18th. It is even more direct “Prima Facie” by Suzie MillerAustralian lawyer and playwright. The story of a criminal lawyer who finds herself on the other side of the law, a victim of sexual violence, exposes the flaws in the justice system. On stage al Colosseum Theater in Turin on March 26 and 27Melissa Vettore and the Finzi Pasca Company, propose with great intensity the comparison between formal justice and lived justice, underlining how theater can become a space for denunciation and reflection, in addition to simple narration.
Annie Baker, juries and female identities
British dramaturgy, which has long been more permeable to female voices, also finds ample space in this part of the season. “Circle Mirror Transformation” by Annie Baker, American author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for theatre, arrives in Italy directed by Valerio Binasco and is staged at Stabile Theater of Turin from 3 to 15 February 2026. Five people who don’t know each other find themselves in an acting class and apparently harmless exercises slowly become devices of emotional exposure, until the scene is transformed into a place where fragility emerges without protection.
Ella Hickson, women’s bodies and political power
From the United Kingdom also come texts that relate the female body to political and judicial power. “Elizabeth’s Bodies” by Ella Hicksondedicated to the figure of Elizabeth I, arrives at Piccolo Teatro Grassi in Milan from 5 to 9 March, restoring a sovereign whose body has always been public, symbolic, contested territory. Serena Sinigaglia chooses instead “The Empyrean” by Lucy Kirkwoodon stage at Elfo Puccini Theater in Milan from March 17th to 29thto tell the story of an entirely female jury in eighteenth-century rural England called to decide whether a pregnant woman can be executed.
Lidia Ravera and Simona Lo Iacono, the theater of 2026 reopens the future
Ideally closing this journey with stories that intertwine personal and collective memory are still Italian women writers. Lidia Ravera, with “Terzo tempo” and directed by Emanuela Giordano, arrives at Rome, at the India Theatrein the month of Mayand recounts an age of life often expelled from the scene, restoring complexity and desire. Donatella Finocchiaro gives face to “Virdimura”in fourteenth-century Catania, from the novel by Simona Lo IaconoVittorini Prize 2024: the story of the first known female doctor becomes an act of symbolic reparation. On stage al Stabile Theater of Catania in the month of April.
Mariagrazia Ciani and Nicoletta Verna, rewriting the memory
“Argon”taken from the text by Mariagrazia Ciani and brought to the stage by Serena Sinigaglia with the dramaturgy of Letizia Russo, reopens the wound of the exodus from Pola, entrusting it to the memory of those who experienced it as a child. Al Elfo Puccini Theater in Milan between April and May.
Closes “Mary Stuart”directed by Andrée Ruth Shammah and starring Marina Ruocco, first theatrical text by Nicoletta Vernaalready nominated for the Strega Prize in 2024. An imprisoned queen becomes a universal figure of a voice that resists even when all seems lost. The show will go on stage at the Franco Parenti Theater in Milan in June.