Cinema Teatro Del Popolo Colle di Val d'Elsa

From: Notes on the theatrical tradition in Colle di Marcello Braccagni In: Miscellaneous Historical Valdelsa year CIII-nn.1 2-3, June / December 1997

[...] In 1921, the Socialists inaugurated by Mignon Ambroge Thomas Politeama del Popolo (People's House and Theatre) built "time left" in an area of ​​new urban expansion.

[...] The background to the construction of the building, which physically refers to the type of the factory, the theories of the "People's Theatre" by Romain Rolland - the theater of the workers must also be distinguished in appearance from the middle class - and the attempts to build, even on the ground of culture, the terms of the redemption of the '"new humanity".

[...] In September of 1922 the representation of the Barber of Seville at the Theatre of the Socialist People's House Colle is interrupted at the end of the first act, for the provocation of a group of fascists.

[...] Back from the March on Rome, the Fascists took possession of the Politeama and turn it into the home of the beam Colle [...] that is committed to a new building, which includes the auditorium and the Casa del Fascio Littorio Theatre.

[...] The vast size of the stage - still one of the largest in Tuscany - denote [...] a clear intent of the propaganda that the regime was activating.

[...] After the war, while restoring the original name of People's Theatre,
[...] the local switch to the direct management of the municipality that, through a committee, work programming choices. The repertoire continues to be characterized by prewar lines: show light, lyrical prose.

[...] The fervent activity of the postwar years, however, will be short-lived. The heavy political climate of the "Cold War" that joined the strong pressure of the local political forces and moderate clerics, would put an early end to municipal management.

[...] In 1953, darkness fell steadily over the theater in Colle. It would have lasted nearly twenty years. The solution of custody to private would prove catastrophic for the theater and for all those who could not manage to ensure a safe re-entry statement.

[...] Twenty years of inactivity in the room had erased the memory of the theatrical fact, the habit to attend seasons of drama and theater lightweight, structured and continuous in time.

[...] Between 1969 and 1974, the first experiences of decentralization musical theater Comunale of Florence, the theatrical promoted first by the Regional Committee for the decentralization of theater and then by the Tuscan Regional Theatre, the public would find in a situation almost disastrous. For years to accommodate these early initiatives only a handful of spectators.

[...] The young people in the vast majority had never attended a theatrical performance of a professional level. There was an audience to completely rebuild and would have been a work of years.

[...] To understand the reasons for and know the ways of the resumption of theater in Colle need to go to the "melting pot" represented by '68, with its cargo of hopes and utopias.

[...] In those years, dominated by the worker and student struggles and the deep crisis of traditional political institutions, [...] the utopia of the theater, that is his immediate subversive potential, he immediately went to join with all the other seeds that germinated utopia in the troubled social body. Bruno Schacherl

[...] On 10 November 1969 he performed at the Teatro del Popolo the Corps de Ballet of the Teatro Comunale of Florence in Tuscany decentralization, which would constitute the resumption of activities at the theater after years of neglect.

[...] In June 1971, the People's Theatre closed its doors for the refurbishment of the hall that would be completed in April of the following year.

[...] On December 22, 1972, the City established the Commission for cultural activities to cope with organizational problems of decentralization of the shows at the Teatro Comunale in Florence and that of prose performances sponsored by the Regional Committee for the theatrical decentralization, which would affect Hill also.

[...] The City of the Hill, with the Commission recently established in the winter of 1973 drew up a program of activities that saw merged into a single billboard proposals put forward by the Teatro Comunale di Firenze (opera, ballet, concerts) and the Committee Regional shows of prose.

[...] They were about to be concluded at the Teatro del Popolo work of the structural adjustment of the artists' dressing rooms, prescribed by the Provincial Commission for the supervision of places of public entertainment, in view of the 1973-1974 season.

[...] For the season 1975-1976 the Regional Theatre Toscano spotted the municipalities with facilities viable and sufficiently equipped theater, where create the most articulate and consistent programming on the quantity and quality by supporting 50% of the cost of the shows. Hill was in the pink of these centers.

[...] The Teatro Regionale Toscano also decided to propose some common decentralization of hosting performances of experimental theater already pre-programmed to Rondo of Bacchus. He came forward only Colle, Pietrasanta and Pisa.

[...] In 1976, the process of education of the public was just starting. In the 1975-76 season he had seen a sharp increase in viewers (average of 200-250 per show, compared with 80 in the 1974-75 season). To score this increase in public had certainly contributed to the continuity of the initiative, the involvement of local municipalities and cultural realities of the area, but surely it could not yet be said to rely on a public stage.

[...] In May 1977, the City noted the management of the cinema and theater thus overcoming the serious limitation that stood in the activities of performance and preliminary and ancillary to those of the same, as the advance ticket sales and subscriptions, physical places of assembly activities and direction of the hall, office, store, etc.. By the 1980s they took away even the printing of brochures (in the following years with briefings), posters, and every year you would be given life to a series of meetings and presentation of shows at schools and cultural organizations and social. One of these initiatives and their collegial management by organizing a team would have allowed the growth of the presence of the public.