Between June and August, the theatre’s programming includes shows about historical reparations, the plight of being a parent in a world on the verge of colapse, an audition that recalls 30 years of one of Portugal’s most proeminent theatre collectives and a project that aims to think about the arts of the future.
After an auspicious creative debut with Blackface, Marco Mendonça presents Reparations baby!, a show on the theme of historical reparations. On the stage of a new television competition, the first with only black participants, controversy and confusion ensue. Between segments on anti-racist theory, Luso-African pop culture and colonial trivia, Reparations Baby! is born, a programme that aims to revolutionise Portuguese prime time.
Using the potential of new media, portuguese filmmaker Jorge Jácome creates Cosmic Sans. An original work in digital format that reflects the missions of Dona Maria II and NTT DATA, the theatre's innovation partner, and reaffirms the commitment of both institutions to fostering strategic thinking about the arts of the future.
Corre, bebé! is a collection of reflections on the conflicts and desires of parenthood. A couple of trans people think about what it might be like to have babies in a post-apocalyptic scenario, increasingly present in the collective imagination of our time. A creation that brings together the sensibilities of Ary Zara (filmmaker) and Gaya de Medeiros (dancer and choreographer).
Almost two decades after being forced to leave the Miguel Bombarda Hospital warehouse, the Teatro Praga collective was invited by the Dona Maria II to temporarily reoccupy the place, now a small theatre, for a show, as part of the company's 30th anniversary. However, times have changed, interventions on the building and the city have altered the context and the architecture. Likewise, the Teatro Praga is no longer the same. This comeback without return is the motto for its new show: Audição. In this creation, Teatro Praga makes itself heard for what it was and what it is: a collective simultaneously inside and outside an idea of theatre, seeking a specific relationship of resistance with places, bodies and disciplines.
Cover photo: Filipe Ferreira
