The following text was printed in the Diary of the Children's Theatre Experimental School, written by Chiara Guidi, translated by Valentina Guidi (1996)

1992 AESOP'S FABLES. A surface of about four thousand square meters is entirely covered by a layer of straw in order to host three hundred living animals of different species. Stables and shed, dens and chicken-runs, drinking-troughs, and mangers had to be built; rhythms of daily feeding and systematic cleaning of the place. Here, the literalness of the fable was carried to an extreme and, through realism, the level of the fantastic was reached: what was seen became an incredible vision. It's just that level of literalness which children impress on their most serious mimetic games. The challenge is also that of bringing the animal in the heart of the city.

1993 HANSEL AND GRETEL, by the Grimm brothers. The philosophical concern towards childhood always involves theatre results which are not usual performances, but settings characterized by monumental dimensions allowing a total immersion into the story. The existential wanderings of Hansel and Gretel are here placed and revealed throught the topographic reconstruction of a stomach-shaped labyrinth through which the children go in order to know what is happening. Narrow tunnels, ups and downs, bridges and underpasses had to be passed through in order to find the two brothers, while it was possible to smell perfumes of aromatic herbs in the wood and of just-cooked caramel inside the marizpan house.

1994 THE LABOURS OF HERCULES. Hercules is probably the most 'infantile' hero of classical antiquity. Here Hercules was played by a child. The fairy-tale attempt of children heroes to find the world of the adults through misadventures and journeys, is here symbolized by Hercules' attempt to pass from the human kingdom to the divine one. The setting changes from a classical theatre of the Italian Renaissance to teh Augean stables, up to the Afterlife kingdom, formed by many domes of different sizes. Also in this dramatic story there are many animals: some are real, others are obtained by pieces of machinery and engines moving autonomously, just like the terrible lion of Nimea.

1995 BUCHETTINO. Dramatic fable written by Perrault. In huge wooden bedroom there are fifty small beds under whose blankets the children lie down to listen to the story told by a narrator. The whole bedroom becomes a resonance chamber for all occurrences told; besides recitative modulations, children can hear rumours, music, thuds, and blows coming from the ceiling and all the room's walls.

1996 DONKEYSKIN. The setting idea was that of an hypogeum underlying the daily life of the city. From a squashed vision, the view widens, or rather it lengthens more and more in the distance, through a perspective of continuous openings. Strange figures and animals circulate in a place rich in classic spells. The space is inhabited in all its dimensions and includes sets characterized by incredible realism and large, hand painted pieces of canvas cloth resembling the false back-drops used in the popular theatres of the Italian Nineteenth century.

All activities related to the children's theatre have been carried out in Cesena, in the Comandini Theatre, in co-operation with Bonci Theatre, Cesena.

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