LUNAE Pontremoli

LUNAE Pontremoli: theatre as a bridge between justice and community

From May 6 to 9, 2026, the village of Pontremoli, in the heart of the Lunigiana region and the province of Massa-Carrara, hosts the first edition of LUNAE – Spring School of Theatre and Mediation. This project combines training, performance, and social commitment, attracting young people, justice professionals, scholars, and artists from all over Italy to this Tuscan town. Four days of performances, workshops, and meetings create a path of exchange and mutual learning of relational skills through the language of theatre and conflict mediation.

Angeli Funamboli: the national premiere

The core of the event is the show Angeli Funamboli, staged at the Teatro della Rosa on Via Ponte C. Battisti. The production stems from a collaborative process between the young women of the Pontremoli Juvenile Penal Institute and the students of the Liceo Malaspina, drawing from the writings of the young inmates and literary references spanning Nietzsche, Rilke, Genet, and Yourcenar. On stage, the notes of the saxophonists from the Pontremoli Band accompany a work that makes the tightrope walker its central metaphor: the balance between risk and possibility, between falling and rising again.

Day-by-day program

• Wednesday, May 6 – 10:30 AM preview of Angeli Funamboli for schools; 9:00 PM national premiere at Teatro della Rosa.
• Thursday, May 7 – 6:00 PM presentation of the books Cicatrici. Impronte/Curae and Punire e Riparare at Caffè degli Svizzeri; 9:00 PM performance of Angeli Funamboli.
• Friday, May 8 – 2:00 PM training seminar The work of care in the work of justice at Stanze del Teatro; 6:00 PM Atlante di Acrobati happening in Piazza Duomo with the Compagnia Autoportante.
• Saturday, May 9 – 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM panel discussion Funamboli. The youth question the guests at Teatro della Rosa; 9:00 PM final performance of the show.

A community questioning itself

The final panel brings together young people who have participated in restorative justice paths with a criminologist, a jurist, a magistrate, a psychiatrist, an artist, and a writer: an open dialogue that gives voice to the direct experience of the youth. The event involves over sixty university students from the universities of Bologna, Milan, Pisa, and Padua, from the departments of educational sciences, law, and public and international law.

Patronage and supporters

LUNAE is organized by Teatro del Pratello and Cooperativa Dike, with the patronage of the Ministry of Justice and the Tuscany Region, and with the promotion of the Municipality of Pontremoli, the Department for Juvenile and Community Justice, the Centre for Juvenile Justice for Tuscany and Umbria, and the Pontremoli Juvenile Penal Institute. An initiative that turns a small town in Lunigiana into a national laboratory where theatre becomes a tool for care, reparation, and encounter between different worlds.