Not a simple awards ceremony, but a show-event built for one night only. On the evening of Thursday 3 September, at the Ancient Theater of Taormina, great protagonists of the scene will meet on the same stage to celebrate 50 years of the theater festival in Taormina and talk about its contemporaneity through different experiences and languages. Thus was born the Taormina Arte Foundation Award for the Theatre, an award that looks transversally at the different expressions of the scene and the personalities who have interpreted and continue to interpret its evolution: from actors to direction, from scenography to experimentation, up to innovation and the new generations.
Among the first names announced are Gabriele Lavia, Mariangela D’Abbraccio, Marcello Cesena, Ester Pantano, Marisa Laurito, Giampiero Solari, Giancarlo Zanetti, Elisabetta Pozzi, Vincenzo Pirrotta, Nicola Rubertelli and Manuel Agnelli. Different paths and sensitivities that make up the story of a theater capable of crossing different generations, expressive forms and artistic territories. What will make the show-event on September 3 unrepeatable will above all be what each protagonist chooses to bring to the stage. Alongside the talk sessions, each award winner will offer the public their own “gift”, a contribution personally chosen for that evening. Different interventions that will take shape at the Teatro Antico, transforming the presentation of the awards into a show built through the voices and choices of its protagonists.
On the stage of the Teatro Antico, Simona Celi – artistic director of the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation – will accompany the audience on a fascinating journey between memory and contemporaneity, exploring the many nuances of today’s artistic scene. 2026 marks the fiftieth anniversary of 1976 in which Rocco Familiari and the Living Theater began the international vocation of the Theater in Taormina, making it, over time, one of the symbolic places in which to celebrate performances of a high artistic level. A goal that today inevitably resonates with the memory of Ninni Panzera, who, with his tireless commitment, contributed to bringing great theater to the stage of the Teatro Antico, making the multidisciplinary Taormina Arte Festival an absolute excellence in the Sicilian and international panorama.
The Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation thus chooses to celebrate a great cultural heritage by looking to the future, putting the quality and identity of a festival that has made the history of live entertainment back at the centre. The evening will also include a special philatelic postmark dedicated to the Award, destined to leave a further mark on this edition.