English Theatre Milan

20/08/2026

🎭 TWELFTH NIGHT (or: What You Will)
✨ English Theatre Milan Shakespeare Workshop 2026–27 ✨

Adaptation & staging by Maggie Rose
Produced by Sal Cabras

Fancy spending the year acting, singing, dancing and performing Shakespeare in English?

English Theatre Milan is looking for performers to join our new workshop devoted to Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare’s funniest, wildest and most moving comedies. 🎭💘🎶

🌊 A shipwreck.
🎭 Mistaken identities.
💌 Impossible love stories.
😂 Chaos, music and mayhem.

In a world full of uncertainty, the characters of Twelfth Night are determined to find love, happiness and a new life – NOW!

You’ll have the chance to play one of 12–14 roles and develop your acting, voice, movement, singing and performance skills. The original text has been adapted and slightly modernised to make Shakespeare accessible to performers and audiences alike.

📅 ONLINE READING
Wednesday 23 September – 18:30

📍 FIRST WORKSHOP MEETING
Wednesday 30 September – 18:30
Via Solferino 17, Milan

🎭 Workshops continue every Wednesday until early June, leading to performances in some very special Milan locations.

💶 Workshop contribution: €400
🐦 Early Bird: €350 if you enrol by 31 August
The reduced fee also applies to current ETM members and participants in previous Shakespeare workshops.

👉 You can attend the first two sessions with no obligation to continue.

📩 Interested? Send us a short CV as soon as possible.
Selections are already underway, and we can arrange an online call to tell you more.

Come and discover Shakespeare from inside the play. ❤️

18/08/2026

🎭✨ **TWELFTH NIGHT: LOVE, IDENTITY, AMBITION… AND CHAOS!** ✨🎭

In *Twelfth Night*, Shakespeare gives us a hilarious 😂 but surprisingly sharp portrait of upper-class society.

👑 Social ambition
💘 Love and marriage
🎭 Disguised identities
🍷 Pleasure vs self-control
📈 People trying to climb the social ladder

What feels remarkably modern is the role of women. Shakespeare challenges the stereotype of Renaissance women as obedient and dependent on men. Instead, **three independent women take centre stage**. 💪❤️

🌊 **VIOLA**
Shipwrecked and believing her twin Sebastian is dead, Viola refuses to give up. She disguises herself as a man, **Cesario**, and works for Duke Orsino.

Then comes the love triangle… 😵‍💫

❤️ Viola loves Orsino
❤️ Orsino loves Olivia
❤️ Olivia loves Cesario… who is actually Viola!

👑 **OLIVIA**
After her brother’s death, Olivia rejects all suitors, including Orsino. Then she meets Cesario and falls in love at first sight. 💥❤️

Things get even stranger when she meets Viola’s identical twin Sebastian and marries him, believing he is Cesario. 💍😂

🧠 **MARIA**
Witty, intelligent and ambitious, Maria eventually marries the wealthy, party-loving **Sir Toby Belch**. 🍷💍

She also creates the famous trick against Malvolio. ✉️😈

🍻 **PARTY PEOPLE vs PURITANISM**

Sir Toby and Sir Andrew love drinking, eating, singing and dancing. 🎶🍷

Malvolio, Olivia’s stern and ambitious steward, condemns their behaviour. 😠

Maria writes a fake letter making Malvolio believe Olivia loves him. He falls for it completely, even appearing in the infamous **yellow stockings**. 💛🧦😂

But when he is later locked away as if insane, Shakespeare makes us wonder:

🤔 **Has the joke gone too far?**

🤡 Finally, Feste the Clown criticises BOTH Malvolio’s joyless severity and Sir Toby’s excess.

So perhaps the real question is:

⚖️ **Is there a middle way between repression and excess?**

❤️ Love. 😂 Laughter. 🎶 Music. 🧠 Wisdom. ⚖️ Moderation.

Four hundred years later, *Twelfth Night* still feels astonishingly modern. 🎭✨

27/06/2026

27/06/2026

23/06/2026

When your boss asks for an update and you have to explain that the Queen of the Fairies has fallen in love with a donkey. 🫏✨

In this scene, Puck proudly reports back to Oberon after his mischievous plan works a little too well: Titania is now hopelessly enchanted… and her new romantic interest is Bottom, complete with donkey’s head.

Shakespeare: making workplace updates weird since 1595.

23/06/2026

And just like that… Puck has the last word. ✨

Mischief managed, lovers confused, fairies satisfied, humans slightly traumatised — and then comes the applause.

In this final monologue, Puck speaks directly to the audience, asking us to think of the whole adventure as nothing more than a dream.

A perfect ending to A Midsummer Night’s Dream: cheeky, magical, and just a little bit suspicious.

27/05/2026

✨🧚‍♀️ Shakespeare, summer magic, mischief… and Milan! 🫏🌙

English Theatre Milan presents A Midsummer Madness in Milan, a playful adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Maggie Rose, performed by participants of ETM’s 2025–26 Shakespeare Workshop.

Expect enchanted confusion, comic misunderstandings, love gone gloriously wrong, and a touch of theatrical madness — exactly as Shakespeare intended, but with a Milanese twist. 💫🎭

📍 Saturday 6 June, 7:30 PM
All Saints Church
Via Solferino 17

🌳 Sunday 7 June, 4:30 PM
Parco Segantini
Ortimisti – Orto 3

🎟️ Free admission
💛 Suggested donation: €5
🔗 Bookings: www.EnglishTheatreMilan.org

Come along, bring a friend, and let yourself be carried into a world of fairies, foolish lovers, mistaken identities and midsummer madness. 🌿🦋

🎭✨

12/05/2026

🎭 Shakespeare comes to Milan — for one night only.

Join us at Teatro Out Off, Milan on 18 May for a special double bill celebrating Shakespeare in performance, language, music and movement.

📍 Teatro Out Off
Via Mac Mahon, 16 — Milan
📅 18 May

PART ONE | 6.30 pm
Henry V — a one-man adaptation in English and Italian, performed by Solimano Pontarollo and produced by Casa Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s official home in Verona.

A powerful reflection on leadership, war, responsibility and human fragility, this retelling carries us from the battlefield to the halls of power, asking what happens when dialogue ends and violence begins.

PART TWO | 8.00 pm
Midsummer Madness in Milan
Performed by the participants of English Theatre Milan’s 2025/26 Shakespeare Workshop.

This international cast brings A Midsummer Night’s Dream into contemporary Milan, weaving together Shakespeare’s poetry, reflections on love, dance, music and the magic of the natural world. From jealous lovers and mischievous fairies to the hilarious Mechanics, the performance reminds us that “All the world’s a stage.”

✨ Adaptation and staging: Maggie Rose
💃 Dance: Caroline Westcombe
🎶 Music: Sini Mantynen
👗 Costumes: Paola Montevecchi
🎬 Production: Sal Cabras
📱 Social media: Fabio Slesio

Don’t miss an evening of Shakespeare, transformation and theatrical madness in the heart of Milan.

03/05/2026

🎭 Due to popular demand, English Theatre Milan is back!

Join us for The Globe Burns! Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits
📅 Saturday 9 May
🕕 6:00 pm
📍 Casa del Quartiere Scaldasole, Via Scaldasole 3/A

Admission is free, but a €10 donation is warmly welcomed to support the activities of English Theatre Milan.

Come along for an evening of Shakespeare, theatre, and community!