Staging Dante Today: A Three-Day Residency of Teatro delle Albe at the University of Pennsylvania

This report documents the three-day residency of Teatro delle Albe — the acclaimed Ravenna-based theatre company founded by Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari — at the University of Pennsylvania in February and March 2019. The residency centered on the company’s ongoing Cantiere Dante project, a triptych staging of Dante’s Commedia (Inferno, 2017; Purgatorio, 2019; Paradiso, 2021), and culminated in a performance at the Annenberg Center Live. The report describes Martinelli and Montanari’s distinctive approach to bringing medieval Italian literature to contemporary audiences: by casting non-professional actors, dissolving the boundary between performer and spectator, and interweaving Dante’s verses with modern voices such as Pasolini and Simone Weil. It further examines related projects, including the Kibera (Nairobi) community staging of the Inferno and the polyphonic poem Ahi serva Italia, performed as part of their show fedeli d'Amore. The residency, which included undergraduate workshops, a graduate roundtable, and a public performance, affirms Teatro delle Albe’s central conviction that Dante remains a living, universal presence capable of speaking across centuries, languages, and cultures.