RENOVATION PLAN - Teatre Akadèmia in Barcelona

Project location: Spain, Barcelona
Project start date: September 2020 - Project end date: August 2021
Project number: 2021-002
Beneficiary: Associació Civil Teatre Akadèmia

Teatre Akademia is a project that started in 2007 with the help and funding of the Elsa Peretti Foundation and its president, Elsa Peretti. The project has been managed by Eix49 SL., under the artistic direction of Merce Managuerra until 2015. That same year, the Associació Civil Teatre Akadèmia took the management of it with the help of the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, Delegació a Cataluña.
Its overall objective has been to transform Teatre Akademia into:

- A Production and exhibition Center for theater designed with consistency, risk and handmade feeling, where the public can find proposals of universal themes.
- A promotion center for related art projects, aiming to host resident companies providing asylum and generating synergies for mutual aid. An environment of respect and monitoring projects that accept the fragility of the creative process and wish to explore, discover and harmonize all the voices of those who build the show. 
- An area for training, research and development for professional actors and actresses led by teachers and artists to help deepen the excellence of the profession; where professionals can develop their goals while presenting their shows and exhibitions privately.
- A place for meeting, reflection and discussion where interaction and different opinions help feed and strengthen programming, in addition to closer ties between people.
- Dynamic axis of pilot programs in the field of social theater and rhetoric, committed to raise awareness and bring imagination to children, teenagers and adults. An axis to deepen the language, initially Catalan, through teachers to help actors to improve speech in the interest of providing the world of theater new dramaturgy and theatrical adaptations. 

The first phase of the project was carried out in October 2007 with multiple activities, many international courses, exhibitions and workshops, theater workshops, rehearsals and performances of different companies.
In 2010 the area was restored to turn it into a permanent exhibition hall theater, opened with the premiere of Sophocles' Electra once the construction is completed.
The second phase, from 2010 to 2012, involved the construction of parking that prevented access to the room. During this period was developed the design of the website, the philosophy of the project, programming lines and the internal organization of the departments. Three productions were released in other theaters in the city and finally the license to carry out other activities is obtained.
The third phase from 2012 to date began with the definitive opening of the theater, where is carry on with the continuous education to professional actors with international teachers, in addition to the continuous display of shows.
Thus far, different activities have been produced, such as:
30 own shows, 1 international co-production, 9 co-productions and 21 courses have been organized (some of them in collaboration with AISGE Foundation). 24 resident companies have been supported and 60 shows put up by external companies. Finally, we have organized 53 free activities are organized opened to the general audience.
Teachers of undisputed international reference such as Anatoli Vassiliev, Thomas Richards, Krystian Lupa, Andrés Lima; directors and pedagogues such as Dugald Bruce-Lockhart, Konrad Zschiedrich, Boris Rotenstein and Marco Calvany have collaborated in the project. So, as published by the press, the Teatre Akadèmia, has not only been a project of an "early maturity" (JA Benach, the temps.cat, 05/10/14) but also a "second idyllic home for European theater "(M. Izard, Butxaca, 03.05.2015).
It is worth to mention, from a standpoint of the general programming carried out, that the quality of the activities performed at Teatre Akadèmia represents a reference in the theatrical map of the city. It can be said that the professional world and the press recognize the work and values the risk and excellence of the proposals.
In this sense, Teatre Akademia has an unusual location due to its philosophy and programming. Let’s provide some outstanding quotes that have been published lately about the broadcast:

“It is not bizarre that Teatre Akadèmia has decided to recover this production by the company La Danesa, which was shown during just a few days within Grec Festival a year ago. Saramago in a pure state. A politician, a fighter, a lucid. This just makes us remember that sometimes they want us blind.” – El Periódico de Catalunya i Suplement On (Aida Pallarès) about Assaig sobre la lucidesa 04.10.2019

“Today I would like to strongly recommend a company and its project, INGENU, which was born as a training group and research within the theatre sector and has found in Shakespeare the inspiration to create its artistic identity.” El Segre about the cycle 5 years and 3 Shakespeares – 08.11.2019

“Last season, Serena Vergano made such a brief appearance that many people were left outside. So, here we go again, one of the most respected muses of the Barcelona during the 60’s who longed for a cosmopolitan air in the middle of such dictatorship greyness stalled in the country.” La Vanguardia / Suplement Què fem? About Lèxic Familiar – 29.11.2019

“On the one hand, it respects some of the Lully’s music and includes some of the classical choreography; on the other hand, comedy merges into the more relaxed burlesque farce to become a joyful game of clowns in which Laura Aubert comic timing shines through above all. Even if it keeps the style of that era, the free version blinks an eye to the contemporary times.” Time Out (Santi Fondevila) about the La Mascarada – 19.12.2019

“Ludovica Damiani and Guido Torlonia have created a precious portrait of the wizard of Rimini filling up Teatre Akadèmia.” El País (Marcos Ordóñez) about Maestro Fellini – 13.03.2020

“The play moves through the sense and meaning of what we say beyond the words we use and, even more, the silence between them. And it is precisely the meaning of these pauses which give depth to a quite conventional dialog and an interesting set up by Elena Fortuny and great work by Isabelle Bres and Maria Pau Pigem.” Time Out (Santi Fondevila) about Per un sí o per un no – 28.02.2020.

This project, which received a grant from the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, includes the change of structure of the current stands as well as a last generation technical renewal of the venue. This is a new concept of space which goes beyond a simple technical and structure renewal since it implies a conceptual reborn, which will place Teatre Akadèmia on the forefront of the venues in Barcelona.

The main goals of this project are:

- Granting the attendees and the companies/artists with a safe main floor even if social distance is required by shifting the stands layout and incorporating two stands on both sides and one line of stands in the centre. This fact implies the capacity of the theatre going up to 100 seats.
- Ofering the artists and companies a space in which technical equipments allow them to reach innovative proposals by exploring new shapes of technologies derived from the transmedia storytelling on the stage. In order to achieve that, we have enhanced them with brand new multimedia, sound and light devices and technologies.
- Placing Teatre Akadèmia as a theatre and artistic reference in the city.