Academy of Madness

The Academy of Folly is one of Trieste's historic theater companies. Born in 1992 as an evolution of "Velemir Teatro" - a group founded in 1983 by the actor and director Claudio Misculin and the psychologist Angela Pianca inside the former psychiatric hospital of Trieste - it is a cultural project that draws its origins and foundations from the epochal revolution that Franco Basaglia carried out in Trieste: the demolition of the walls of the mental hospital and the liberation of the people segregated there.
It is not, as some might think, a sort of "theatre therapy", that is, a process of treatment for people suffering from mental disorders through the staging of their experiences in a group context. Instead, it is a full-fledged theater company, where "being different", which society continues undaunted, despite Basaglia, to want to force into the confines of a presumed normality (a modern invention which tends towards the homologation of individuals for satisfy the economic and financial interests of consolidated power groups), is not only accepted in its entirety, but is considered an added value for the theater itself, understood as art. Shows such as "La luce diinterno" by Gianni Fenzi, "Stravaganza" by Dacia Maraini, "Crucifige" by Claudio Bernardi, as well as the more recent "Asterix and Obelix" and "I am God and I don't want to get well" are expressions of this. by Claudio Misculin.

Thanks to the project on the Academy of Madness I received the FIAF FVG author of the year award in 2014.
The work was the subject of an individual exhibition in Pordenone in 2014.