Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ENTERTAINMENT
TEATRO JUNGHANS
( 041 241 19 74;
www.teatrojunghans.it
; Piazza Junghans 494, Giudecca; prices vary; ; Redentore)
This
experimental theatre, nicknamed Teatro Formaggino (Little Cheese), seats 150 around its
three-sided stage. But you're not expected to just sit there: Teatro Junghans offers work-
shops on costume design, mask-acting, and
commedia dell'arte
(improvisational comedy).
If you'd rather leave that sort of thing to professionals, check the online calendar for per-
formances.
THEATRE
THE PALACE OF CINEMA
Eugenio Miozzi's rigid, Rationalist
Palazzo della Mostra del Cinema
seems as ill-suited to the playboy Lido as a
woolly bathing suit. But its severe Fascist lines were well in keeping with the ambitious modernism of the era,
when business tycoon and Fascist minister Count Giuseppe di Volpi conceived of the film festival as a means of
fostering the Lido's upmarket tourism industry.
Bolted onto the already successful Biennale, it was an inspired idea in keeping with Volpi's other modernising
projects - the Schneider Trophy air race, the Casino and an international motor-boat race - all of which lured a new
breed of monied American, English and French holidaymakers to the city. Inaugurated in August 1932 on the ter-
race of the Excelsior, the festival was the first of its kind (Cannes was a relative latecomer in 1946) and capitalised
on the boom in the film-making industry. So great was its success, in fact, that Miozzi's
palazzo
was commissioned
within three years and remains the main festival venue - at least until the much-delayed new cinema is completed.
