Premieres, guided tours of stages and backstage areas, free récitas, tributes, evocations of April and a protest are among the activities announced for Wednesday in Portugal, on World Theater Day, by companies from the north to the south of the country.
Almeida Garrett, Bertolt Brecht, David Mamet, Edward Albee, Federico García Lorca, Pau Miró, Tankred Dorst are some of the playwrights on stage, while actors such as Rui Mendes and Ruy de Carvalho are honored, and the premieres extend from Vila Nova de Famalicão to Cascais and Lisbon.
The Teatro Nacional S. João, in Porto, opens its doors for the rehearsal of “Fado Alexandrino”, based on António Lobo Antunes, which will be premiered around a week later, and the Nacional D. Maria celebrates “The theater that April opened”, at the Capitólio, in Lisbon.
In Vila Real, Filandorra – Teatro do Nordeste, which celebrates “Theater Week” with local communities, marks World Day with the “performance act” “O cutelo do Adão”, a protest performance against the still Minister of Culture, Pedro Adão e Silva.
The ‘performance’ takes place a day before the announcement of the composition of the new government, and is based on the company’s exclusion from support from the Directorate-General for the Arts (DGArtes) in the 2023-2026 tenders, despite being eligible, like other structures.
In Vila Nova de Famalicão, the Momento – Artistas Independentes company premieres “Eu sou Lorca” (I am Lorca), based on the Andalusian poet and playwright’s “Assim que passem cinco anos” (As soon as five years have passed), to think about what it means to be an artist during a dictatorial regime and about freedom in the arts. The performance is preceded by a debate on “Freedom and artistic creation” and followed by a conversation with the audience.
The Teatro Experimental de Cascais (TEC) premieres “Últimos remoros antes do esquecimento”, by Jean-Luc Lagarce, directed by Elmano Sancho, at the Mirita Casimiro Municipal Theater. This is the second production by TEC (which turns 60 in 2025), following the death of its founder, Carlos Avilez, last year.
In Alverca, Cegada premieres “Bartleby’s Refusal”, by Herman Melville, at the Teatro-Estúdio Ildefonso Valério, with an adaptation by Ricardo Cabaça. The play is directed by Rui Dionísio and performed by Ana Lúcia Magalhães, Joana Pialgata and Paulo Matos.
In Lisbon, Teatro Aberto is premiering David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theater”, which is also Cleia Almeida’s directorial debut. The roles are played by Alfredo Brito and Vítor Silva Costa.
Another premiere in the capital takes place at the Armando Cortez Theatre, with Companhia da Esquina marking its 20th anniversary with a performance of Bertolt Brecht’s “Terror and Misery in the Third Reich”, directed by Jorge Gomes Ribeiro, with music by António Vitorino D’Almeida. Proceeds will go to Apoiarte – Casa do Artista.
The Teatro da Trindade opens its doors in the afternoon to reveal the secrets of the 150-year-old building, with two visits backstage and on stage. In the evening, in the Carmen Dolores room, admission to the performance of Edward Albee’s “The Lady from Dubuque” will be free.
At the Teatro da Politécnica, Artistas Unidos also have free admission to the performance of “Giraffes” by Pau Miró, with up to two tickets per person. The Polytechnic also hosts a reading of “A Mouthful of Birds”, by Caryl Churchill, by Teatro da Cidade.
The S. Luiz Teatro Municipal opens the doors of the Luis Miguel Cintra theater for another free session: “Fedra (não é de pedra)”, written and directed by Martim Pedroso, with Rita Lello in the lead role.
Premiered the day before, the play is based on the figure from Greek mythology, the wife of Theseus, desired by her stepson Hippolytus. The production is the result of a challenge launched by Rita Lello to Martim Pedroso, meeting an “old desire” of the actor and director “to take a tragedy and stage a myth”.
At Cinearte, A Barraca is presenting “1936 – The year Ricardo Reis died”, in a session that won’t be free of charge, because in the last DGArtes biennial support competition the company, as it explains, “wasn’t considered”, “despite being eligible”. Barraca regrets “not being able to dispense with the support of the public in buying tickets”, at a price of ten euros, and launches a “Long live the theater!”
The show is based on the novel by José Saramago, adapted and directed by Hélder Mateus da Costa and directed by Maria do Céu Guerra.
Also in Lisbon, the parish of Santo António, which covers Parque Mayer, is inaugurating the inscription of the names of 33 more theater personalities on the Portuguese sidewalk of Praça da Alegria, which now has a total of 112. Among the new honorees is actor Rui Mendes, 87, with a career spanning more than 60 years.
At the Capitólio, in the heart of Parque Mayer, Teatro D. Maria II is celebrating “The Theater that April Opened”, a free admission event that marks its return to Lisbon after the “National Odyssey” of 2023.
The “Abril Abriu” cycle will run until July, with 18 shows in various venues around the city, while the headquarters building in Rossio is under construction.
For World Day, the D. Maria reserves a brief preview of Pedro Penim’s “Quis saber quem sou – Um concerto teatral” (I wanted to know who I am – A theatrical concert), which will revisit songs from the revolution along with stories from the generations that made April 25 happen, with its premiere scheduled for the 20th at São Luiz. There will also be a debate on “Theater and the Revolution”, a concert by Bruno Pernadas and Margarida Campelo, and a party by Pedro Coquenão ‘aka’ Batida.
At the National Museum of Theatre and Dance, also with free admission, the program of guided tours, performances and workshops is “inspired by Gil Vicente”, with “an eye to the freedom of April”.
In Almada, the Teatro Municipal Joaquim Benite is presenting the children’s play “Verdi que te quero Verdi”, in the morning and afternoon, and “O futuro já era”, in the evening. The Almada Theatre Company (CTA) will be announcing some of the shows in the 41st edition of the Festival, which will run from July 3 to 18, and the exhibition “Censorship of the Theatre”, co-produced by the Ephemera Archive and the CTA, will take place on the last day.
In Porto, the Nacional S. João opens its backstage to the public, inviting them to visit “its national monuments” – the Monastery of S. Bento da Vitória and the theater building – and to attend staged readings and a rehearsal of “Fado Alexandrino”, directed and dramaturged by the artistic director, Nuno Cardoso.
The end of the day, at the Carlos Alberto Theater, is reserved for “Crepúsculo”, a set of staged readings, conducted by Nuno Cardoso, included in the “Theatre for Democracy” project, which brings together “the concerns of four young European playwrights from Italy, France/Iran, Belgium and Spain”.
Democracy and the dangers “that beset its principles” are thus at the center of the texts by Francesca Lancelotti (“Outdefining”), Gurshad Shaheman (“The tide is rising”), Stuer Dhaenens & Vanden Broecke (“Rexit!”) and Denise Duncan (“93 Meters Long)”.
Seiva Trupe, in Porto, will pay homage to one of its founders, actor António Reis, who died in 2022, and present the new ‘síte’, “in anticipation of the future”.
In Braga, at the Theatro Circo, CTB – Companhia de Teatro de Braga will debate “What is theater for?” and present “Amphitheatre”, by Heinrich Von Kleist, directed and dramaturged by Rui Madeira.
In Maia, Teatro Art’Imagem is holding the sixth and final day of the Amateur Theatre Show.
In Viseu, the exhibition “Retratos contados de Ruy de Carvalho” opens at Casa da Ribeira, with the presence of the honoree.
In Coimbra, O Teatrão, which began celebrating its 30th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of April this month, is continuing a program of guided tours, mapping the sites of resistance to the Estado Novo dictatorship in the city, “where the flowers of the Revolution began to be sown”.
In Fundão, at the Moagem Auditorium, Este – Estação Teatral celebrates the day with “2+2=5”, a play based on George Orwell’s novel “1984”.
Teatro das Beiras, from Covilhã, is coming to Seia’s Casa Municipal da Cultura with “The great imprecation before the city walls”, by the German Tankred Dorst, a play that marks the 50th anniversary of the Revolution and the company’s activity.
In Leiria, at the José Lúcio da Silva Theater, there will be “The return of Richard III on the 9:24 train”, by Gilles Dyrek, directed by Ricardo Neves-Neves, with Adriano Luz and Ana Nave in the cast. In Caldas da Rainha, Teatro da Rainha presents “Às duas horas da manhã”, by Falk Richter, directed by Fernando Mora Ramos.
In Évora, at the Teatro Garcia de Resende, the initiatives of the Centro Dramático de Évora (Cendrev) with Cosmogama culminate in a literary ball.
In Faro, at the Lethes Theater, there will be “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, by the Mákina de Cena company, and in Lagoa, Bruxa Teatro presents “Love rains on Rua do Matador”.
On Antena 2 radio, there will be Wireless Theater, with “Elegia Para Uma Senhora”, by Arthur Miller.
Teatro do Noroeste – Centro Dramático de Viana, which signs the Portuguese translation of the World Theater Day message, written this year by Nobel laureate Jon Fosse, has made ten years of creations and the reading of the message available on social media.
World Theater Day can also be taken as the start of the countdown to upcoming premieres: “Na Medida do Impossível”, by Tiago Rodrigues, on April 17 at Culturgest in Lisbon; “Ulisses: A European Odyssey”, a project about the work of James Joyce, which will arrive at Teatro São Luiz, by the hand of Marco Martins, in June, the same month in which the monologue “Hediondos Men”, by David Foster Wallace, will be performed by Nuno Cardoso and Patrícia Portela, at Teatro Carlos Alberto, in Porto.