Sagunto's Escuela Municipal de Teatro turns 20 with free theatre in the old town
Sagunto turns its old town into a stage on 25 and 26 September: the Escuela Municipal de Teatro (Municipal Theatre School) turns 20 with a free theatre route through four historic houses, booking required.
Twenty years after it was founded, Sagunto's Escuela Municipal de Teatro (Municipal Theatre School) is turning its anniversary into an event open to the whole city: over two evenings in late September, four houses in the old town will stop being private homes and become a stage. The main celebration falls on 25 and 26 September, though the full 20th-year programme will keep unfolding over the coming months with exhibitions, performances and dramatised readings in spots as varied as the Gerencia gardens or the Pantalán pier.
Under the title Patis i Terrasses ("Courtyards and Terraces"), visitors can move freely between the four houses to piece together, scene by scene, the play Llueven ("It's raining") — created by last year's students, written and directed by Sergi Juesas, who leads the Camí de Nora theatre company. Each scene lasts under 25 minutes and repeats three times through the evening, at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm, so nobody has to choose one house over another: visitors simply move from door to door.
The confirmed addresses are Calle San Ramón 9, Calle Amalia Danés 9, Calle Vieja del Castillo 23 and Calle Castillo 39, all inside the old walled town. Language adds another layer to the route: three of the scenes will be performed in Spanish, while the one at Calle Amalia Danés will be entirely in Valencian. Entry to either evening is free, though it does require booking a place in advance through the Notikumi platform (a local events-booking website).
Behind those two evenings lies 20 years of ongoing work with very different audiences. Every year the school reaches classrooms across Sagunto through expression and drama workshops, runs the Aula Jove ("Youth Classroom") for teenagers linked to the Casal Jove youth centre, and offers acting training for adults delivered by the Camí de Nora team itself. Three council departments — Youth and Childhood, Education, and the Campus Obert a la Ciutadania ("Open Campus for Citizens") programme — share responsibility for a project whose reach cuts across much of the council's structure.
The programme was unveiled at an event in the city attended by mayor Darío Moreno; the councillor in charge, Roberto Rovira; the two people leading the school for Camí de Nora, Sergi Juesas and Ismael Bereje; and some of the current students. Rovira noted that this edition will make use of little-used heritage spaces, including the Gerencia gardens, and used the event to thank Camí de Nora for three and a half decades training actors across the district, while renewing the council's commitment to the project.
For the company's part, Juesas argued the project is open to any resident, since it combines school sessions with the Aula Jove and adult training, and summed up two decades of work as a sustained effort to use theatre to shape more reflective, empathetic and creative people. Bereje, meanwhile, previewed other dates in the anniversary calendar — dramatised readings prepared by different generations of former students, and a performance planned for around February at the Pantalán — and pointed to the mix of ages within a single group, with members aged 18 and 70 working side by side, as one of the traits that best defines the school.
With two decades behind it, the school has earned a fixed place on Sagunto's cultural calendar through an unusual formula: taking stage creation out of conventional theatres and putting it literally inside old-town houses. The late-September event will also serve as a visible showcase of the past year's work by the adult group, just before a new season of workshops begins. According to Sagunto City Council, with information from elperiodic.com.