Online ticket sales for the Biennale Teatro available as of 29 April

Starting tomorrow, Wednesday 29 April (at 3 pm), audiences may reserve their seats for the performances of the 54th International Theatre Festival directed by Willem Dafoe titled AlterNATIVE. The tickets and subscriptions to the performances, to be held from 7 to 21 June in Venice, may be purchased exclusively on the website of La Biennale di Venezia at www.labiennale.org.

The offers for the public and concessions for younger spectators include:

· a subscription for three performances of the 54th International Theatre Festival for the price of 60 euro (instead of 75 euro).

· a subscription for students and under 26 for three performances of the 54th International Theatre Festival at the special price of 36 euro (instead of 48 euro).

· the combined ticket Biennale Arte + Biennale Teatro, which includes the choice of one performance among those in the programme of the 54th International Theatre Festival and one admission to the 61st International Art Exhibition for a total price of 40 euro (instead of 55 euro).

To be held from 7 to 21 June 2026, the 54^th International Theatre Festival travels across all continents to spotlight different cultures and traditions, offering new ways of seeing and conceiving of the world.

The journey starts at the living origin of theatre, in Greece with Christos Stergioglou and his concert-performance Cries, and with Mario Banushi, recipient of the Silver Lion, and his Romance familiare, the trilogy that made him famous, presented in its entirety for the first time by La Biennale di Venezia in a co-production with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

From Mediterranean Europe to the Far East, where for over thirty years Satoshi Myiagi takes on the keystones of the Western theatre tradition, seen through the lens of the Japanese theatre tradition. Thus, Mugen Noh Othello reinvents Shakespeare in light of the Mugen-Noh theatre ritual, a tradition dating back to the thirteenth century that views a play as the recreation of a dream or an illusion.

From Southeast Asia comes the Bumi Purnati Indonesia company, guardians of an original form of dance, music and song that draws from a complex tradition of martial arts known as Silat, which in 2019 was designated as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The programme features two plays, inspired by events, stories and legends of the past: Under the Volcano and Hikayat Perahu / The tale of Boat.

From India comes a performance art with a rigorous vocabulary, steeped in spirituality and refined eroticism, which has come to us through the centuries: it is the Odissi dance by the choreographer and dancer from Kolkata Sharmila Biswas, the author and performer of Mischief dance: A Journey Through Rhythm and Spirit.

Ancestral imagery consisting of earth and air, water and fire, inhabited by gods and men, underlies the visionary creations of the Samoan artist Lemi Ponifasio, who draws from Aboriginal cultures to create new symbols that also speak to our present time. Star Returning: Venice, a work that Ponifasio has adapted specifically for his appearance in Venice, is a way to listen to the earth, the ancestors and the shared myths of the Yi people from the mountainous region of Chinese Daliangshan.

From Rwanda comes the writer, actor, dancer and director Dorcy Rugamba with Hewa Rwanda – Letter to the Absent, a first-person account of the Tutsi genocide in 1994, which determined his story as a man and an artist. Also from the African continent comes a world music celebrity, the singer from Benin Angelique Kidjo in concert with the pianist Thierry Vaton.

From Italy come Emma Dante, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, with I fantasmi di Basile, inspired by the visionary and Baroque world of this Neapolitan writer, and Davide Iodice with Promemoria, centred on the stories and lives of the elderly in the care home at San Giobbe in Venice, at the end of an intensive workshop held in the facilities that care for the elderly (Istituzioni Pubbliche di Assistenza Veneziane). And the debut on the festival’s international stage of young artists made possible by the consolidated activities of the Biennale College, which will introduce again this year one director and two playwrights under 30: Alberto Colombo Sormani with Imago Vocis | spacetime in-between, winner of the call for a director; Davide Pascarella and Bruna Bonanno, winners of the call dedicated to new dramaturgy, respectively with Bacio Sogno Autodistruzione and Aka Jolly Roger. In this context, Tacet by Jacopo Giacomoni, the play that won Biennale College Drammaturgia 2024-25 and the Premio Riccione 2025, and was performed last year in the form of a stage reading, will be presented in its definitive version directed by Silvia Costa.

And again in keeping with the spirit of Biennale College, and the relationship between young artist and mentor, is the Progetto Scuole di Teatro, in which La Biennale opens its doors to three academies: the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi, which with its third-year actors will stage a classic by Brecht, Santa Giovanna dei Macelli, directed by Marco Plini; the Accademia Teatrale Carlo Goldoni of the Teatro Stabile del Veneto – Teatro Nazionale, with which the director Giorgio Sangati and the graduates of the acting course will present Comeradovera; the Scuola Teatro di Napoli – Teatro Nazionale with which the director and filmmaker Arturo Cirillo and the young second-year actors will pay tribute to Enzo Moscato with Quindici ragazze con qualche esperienza.

Finally, a tribute to Bob Wilson will be on display in Sala delle Colonne at Ca’ Giustinian for the entire duration of the festival, exhibiting the materials collected and preserved at ASAC, the Historical Archive of the Contemporary Arts of La Biennale di Venezia.