Direzione Artistica:
Massimo Betti Merlin e Lorena Senestro
TEATRO DELLA CADUTA
The theater company “Teatro della Caduta” was born in Turin in 2003 from the idea of Massimo Betti Merlin and Lorena Senestro to transform an old neighbourhood workshop into a miniature theater with an italian-style stage, hand curtains, 45 seats, a 4x3 meter stage, and an unusual mezzanine behind the stage with a piano to welcome musicians. The decor is intimate and homely, made with recycled materials and with a very traditional renovation recalling the atmosphere and taste of cabarets from the turn of the century.
Over the years, the theater has hosted hundreds of artists: street performers, actors and musicians, becoming a sort of home for young artists designed to produce shows and theatrical activities in full artistic freedom. It has produced numerous productions that privilege the centrality of the actor and range from new drama to street art, from musical projects to comedy shows. It has quickly become a point of reference for young actors and musicians precisely because it provides a springboard for professionalism, offering opportunities for earnings and promotion in major events and shows.
The theater is recognized and supported by the Piedmont Region and the Ministry of Culture.
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Concentrica is a theater review of performances as well as a construction site with parallel projects: an observatory for and with young people, convivial moments and a network for the contemporary scene.
Created to compensate for the lack of rehearsal spaces, it aimed from the beginning to attract new audiences of all ages to the theater. Therefore, the traditional entrance fee was abandoned and the admission cost was set at 1 euro with the artists' compensation guaranteed by “up to you” offerings from the audience.
One of the most significant figures concerns the audience (large and always new): more than 25,000 different spectators in 12 years (and more than 45,000 attendances).
The theater provides its technical staff and its fully-equipped rehearsal hall to debutants. Using this formula, more than 40 shows have been produced, 11 of which have become full-fledged productions, distributed with professional logistics and some of these co-produced with important cultural institutions such as Torino Spirituality, Festival Mirabilia, Circolo dei Lettori, Teatro Stabile di Torino (TST) and Casa del Teatro Ragazzi e Giovani.
It is here, in the theatre of Via Buniva 24, that “Varietà della Caduta” has been staged since 2005, a show that made Teatro della Caduta known to the public, and relaunched variety shows in Turin. Played every Tuesday from 2004 to 2017, it sold out for 13 years, each year with a new edition and welcoming different artists on stage (without audition).
The experience of “Varietà della Caduta” allowed artists from different disciplines to meet and confront each other directly on stage. From the practice, an idea of theater was established, with the actor at the center according to the Italian tradition of the showman and the artistic avant-garde.
The exchange of techniques and experiences between different disciplines, including street art, live music, contemporary music by new composers, physical theater, clowning, storytelling, radio and live reading, influences the company’s work and the adaptation of literary texts and theater classics for the stage, through original dramaturgical rewrites.
The theater aimed to combine the research, use and valorization of dialects for their great affinity with theatrical language (in particular the legitimization of the Piemontese dialect) in the context of registers other than comic, with the bet of a theater accessible to all, outside of niche logics and capable of reaching a large (and true) audience.
Low-budget production has become part of the theater company’s poetics and manifests itself in the creation of sound and lighting sets according to a philosophy of empty space. There is a proximity to the audience by working in small and unconventional spaces, according to a site-specific practice. The use of practices and artists from diverse backgrounds helps to transcend genres and rehabilitate comedy in theater (which is often relegated to popular and separate circuits).
The ongoing activity of Teatro della Caduta is internationally recognized with an average of 13 different performance groups touring theaters and festivals in Italy and abroad.
In addition to having a strong cultural impact, the theater has also established a recognizable presence at the regional level, to such a degree that the spaces managed by the association have been recommended in several tourist guides as “must-see places” (Torino Low Cost, Rizzoli, Lonely Planet, 111 places in Turin that you really must discover, Emons Edizioni).
Assets are made available, as well as the artistic and management skills gained over 15 years and the network of relationships built up during this time. There is also the investment of one’s own resources where it is deemed necessary to improve and implement the project. Shows are circulated and paid for with a fixed cachet or percentage. Fundraising is done through donations, "up to you" and the Concentrica project benefits from several funds: The Italian Ministry of Culture through the FUS grant (Fund for Performing Arts); the Piedmont Region through Regional Law 11/2018 (formerly laws 68 and 58); the City of Turin through the TAP (Torino Performing Arts) call, the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and finally the Fondazione CRT.
Among the activities carried out and implemented over the years, the Concentrica - Performances in Orbit project, now in its thirteenth edition in 2025, has consolidated the presence of Teatro della Caduta within a network of partners and contacts, even outside Piedmont’s regional borders, spreading the expertise and presence of Teatro della Caduta to Liguria and Valle d’Aosta.
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For several years now, Teatro della Caduta has been dedicated to promoting emerging actors and producing, or co-producing new shows. The support provided to actors is also reflected in the theater's organizational management and the creation of the performance showcase: in order to support artists, the theatre encourages the reprogramming of repertory titles, so that productions can circulate in new territories.
The network that Teatro della Caduta has established guarantees artists the opportunity to showcase their work in various contexts, increasing their visibility through cross-partner initiatives. It has also enabled the birth of Concentrica and have strengthened its strong national positioning as well as became an interregional festival with diverse forms and multiple audiences.
Concentrica, currently in its thirteenth edition, finds its purpose in three forms:
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Concentrica in giro (Concentrica on the road): in Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta and Liguria, the festival offers both new titles presented in Turin and titles from the repertoire of previous editions, in an "interregional season" which is integrated with the individual programming of partners. Concentrica's approach supports the companies' journey and the longevity of the repertoire rather than forcing new titles at any cost. At each edition, the partner operators attend the Turin showcase to select the shows to be programmed in their own seasons the following year. Thanks to that approach, a virtuous circle is created and enables artists to return several̀ times to the same territory, even in subsequent seasons. Additionally, the network of partners makes it possible to organize mini-tours of the same shows, optimizing resources and expenses.
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Scampagnate teatrali (Theatrical field trips): a rich and varied calendar of events in and around Turin, characterised by multidisciplinarity and favoring non-strictly theatrical contexts and 360° collaborations with the participating regions. Not only does it offer a programme of live performances, it also provides the public with an opportunity to discover the hidden beauties and excellences of the territory. Theater becomes then an excuse to build a sense of community and escape the routine of one's cultural habits. At the same time, theater also finds new strength and inspiration by moving away from designated spaces and inhabiting places full of history and stories. In terms of the project, Scampagnate teatrali is a means of establishing new partnerships and networking with artistic, cultural, tourist, and food and wine operators in the area.
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Open School: a two-week festival that hosts the new edition's novelties, inhabiting historic school buildings in Turin (and beyond) into theater spaces and activating the school̀ community (from students, to teachers and school workers) in the organization and production of the events. In addition to the specific activities related to the performances’ evenings, students participate in hands-on workshops in the preceding months, as part of the Transversal Skills and Orientation Pathways (PCTO in italian). It aims to inform young people and bring them closer to professions related to the performing arts sector, often hidden "behind the scenes", letting them experience firsthand the process of organizing a cultural event.
The project is the result of work carried out by Teatro della Caduta and supported by various professionals from Turin’s artistic scene and beyond. These include To.o.l - Torino Open Lab (Teatro della Caduta’s under-35 spin-off), Theatron 2.0 and Fondazione Piemonte dal Vivo. The project currently involves just under 300 students from the following schools: IIS Avogadro, Berti’s High School, Convitto Nazionale Umberto I, Albe Steiner’s Institute, IIS Bobbio (Carignano) and Porporato’s High School (Pinerolo). In 2022, the Open School project was recognized by ANPAL Services (the National Agency for Active Labour Policies) as a good practice of the Transversal Skills and Orientation Pathways and was included in the eighth edition of the Catalogue "The School that Enterprise." Finally, with over 2,000 votes, the project is among the 40 finalists from all over Italy in the Art Bonus competition.
As of 2022, the theatre has decided to focus on prioritising growth and development processes for the facility, supported by the win of the Next Generation You - second edition call promoted by the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and with the support of Liv.in.g. The "Teatro della Caduta BEYOND BORDERS" project has two strands:
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The growth and empowerment of the in-house work team: involve a better allocation of delegations and procedural flows, as well as the acquisition of new professionals with targeted skills, focused on specific areas such as project management, international design, and the training of existing staff.
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An internationalization process: the aim is to become increasingly involved in the world of international and European planning, acquiring good practices and more knowledge of the cultural and educational sectors from abroad. Initial steps have been taken, such as memberships in networks, for example IETM (International network for contemporary performing arts), participation in meetings and workshops dedicated to the theme of internationality such as Laboratorio Farnesina, Wonderland Festival and C.Re.S.Co.'s (Coordination of Contemporary Scene Realities), international table meetings, and joining platforms to support the search for international partners such as UP2Europe and Erasmus Toolkit. In addition, Teatro della Caduta has also recently participated in the Culture for Solidarity Fund matchmaking event for the “Just Transition” call.
Finally, Fondazione CRT with its project “Click day SOS! Cybersecurity” to protect the digital data of third sector entities has been launched. The theater will benefit from a free training course and a cybersecurity toolkit, including a Proactive Antivirus package for three mobile devices, an online platform for secure file sharing and editing, and the ability to store up to 20 GB of data per year in a 100% GDPR compliant data center.
