It has been a long time since they loved each other and now they have decided to take the step. T de Teatre and La Calòrica, two of the most relevant Catalan companies of the present, will join forces for a joint show that will premiere at the Teatre Poliorama on February 3, 2027. "From the beginning we have been admirers of La Calòrica. A year ago we proposed to get married and they said yes immediately," explains Àgata Roca, from T de Teatre. The union already has a creation underway titled Les dones Piñeiro, written by the "calòric" playwright playwright Joan Yago and directed by the also "calòric" playwright Israel Solà. "We have been fans of T de Teatre since we were very young, for us they have been a reference all our lives. It is a real luxury to be here," states Júlia Truyol, from La Calòrica, during a ceremony they organized at the Nau Bostik to formalize the union, with a popular sardine feast included.

Two years ago, director Ferran Utzet and actress Emma Vilarasau were looking for allies and producers to stage an ambitious project: to bring to the stage La truita by the Frenchman Baptiste Amann, a family tragicomedy that required eight performers on stage. Finally, they found the company Bitò, the Teatre Poliorama, and the Grec Festival as accomplices, and the production is about to become a reality. La truita will be performed from June 27 to August 8 at Poliorama within the Grec and will then inaugurate this same theater, where it will have a run from September 8 to October 18, with plans to tour Catalonia in 2027. "It is a great spectacle that requires a team of phenomenal actors. We wanted to do it on a grand scale, it is demanding in terms of casting and also the scenic device," states Utzet. For the production, he has used a translation by Carles Batlle, who is the one who discovered the play to him.

The Norwegian writer and playwright Jon Fosse (Haugesund, 1959), winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the most performed living European playwright in the world. "He occupies an important place in the theatrical canon, he is not at all a minority figure," emphasizes director Ferran Utzet. Despite Fosse's impact on contemporary theatre, his works are rarely present on the Catalan stage. In recent years, there have been very few productions, including "Soc el vent" directed by Marc Chornet at L'Akadèmia in 2021 and "Vindrà algú" in 2002, directed by Antonio Simón at Sala Beckett. Now Utzet wants to do him justice with "El fill", which will be performed from May 8 to June 7 at L'Espai Lliure de Montjuïc. "I have a strong sense of challenge and responsibility," says the director.

One of the most admirable achievements of Catalan playwrights in exile is their persistence in continuing to write theatre, despite knowing almost for certain that they would never see it performed in Catalonia. Ambrosi Carrion (Sant Gervasi de Cassoles, 1888–Cornellà de Conflent, 1973) was one of its foremost exponents. With about fifteen unpublished stage texts, Carrion also cultivated poetry and essay writing and built a literary career of over 30 works. Despite this, only one of his plays written in exile has been performed in Catalonia –La dama de Reus (Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, 2008)– and his name has remained in the shadows for decades. With the intention of making him present and vindicating him, Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona has published Teatre inèdit de l'exili, a volume containing three unpublished works by Carrion, prepared by professors Josep Camps Arbós and Francesc Foguet Boreu.

What are we doing today to leave a better world for the women who will live in 2061, when Halley's Comet reappears?", asks theater director Gara Roda to introduce El firmament, a play by Lucy Kirkwood that will be performed from May 6 to June 14 in the Sala Petita of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. The production is set in 1759 —when the comet appeared— and begins with the murder conviction of a woman. To be exempted from the penalty, the woman claims she is pregnant, and the town convenes an all-female jury, made up of townspeople, who must decide if she is telling the truth or not. "I saw the play in New York and it captivated me. Often, only one story is told. Here, we have the opportunity to hear the voices of the fourteen women who will be on stage," says Gara Roda.

The choreographer Enric Gasa Valga (Esparreguera, 1976) left the town in the full bloom of his youth. "Those of my generation left without wanting to leave. To be a real professional, to have a strong career, you had many more opportunities abroad. We all thought it was a temporary situation and that we would return afterwards, but unfortunately, Northern Europe continues to offer better working conditions than the South," reflects the artist. Just a few days ago, he arrived in Barcelona with the production The Great Gatsby - The Show, a musical and choreographic adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic that will be performed at the Teatre Victòria from May 20 to 31. The large-scale show premiered in Austria and has been seen in Munich and Monte Carlo. After Barcelona, it will travel to Bangkok.

After taking over the Teatre del Raval in Barcelona in the autumn of 2024, Pep Tosar and Evelyn Arévalo were confident they could renovate and reopen the venue in six months. Finally, they have needed a year and a half to carry out the renovation they longed for, "tripling the budget to achieve a comprehensive refurbishment" of the space, they explain. The theatre, located at Sant Antoni Abad street number 12, is practically debuting everything. "The grid [the frame of beams from which the spotlights hang] is completely new, and the stage too. We tore down the old one and built a new one. It has gained a meter of proscenium, it has seven in total. We have also redone the old amphitheatre with three new tiers, and we have renovated all the technical lighting and sound equipment," points out Tosar. The renovation has involved changing the floor to adjust its inclination to the new stage height and creating a technical booth that did not exist until then. "We have tried to move away from very high old stages to maximize the relationship between performers and spectators," emphasizes Tosar.

For a long time, Gil Pratsobrerroca (Vic, 1996) dreamed that he wanted to be a writer without knowing if he would succeed. "I've always loved writing a lot, since I was little. In school I entered the Sant Jordi contests and then it became a hobby. When I have a free afternoon, I often start writing. It's a process that relaxes me: I don't have to fight with anyone and I make all the decisions," explains the writer, who with El joc del silenci (La Campana) has become one of the big winners of this Sant Jordi. The thriller, with which he debuted in September, has been the second best-selling Catalan fiction book of the Diada behind Regina Rodríguez Sirvent, who has triumphed with Crispetes de matinada, from the same publisher, and who three years ago had a similar journey with her first book, Les calces al sol.

A hundred shows in 58 venues in Barcelona will make up the program for the 50th Grec Festival, which will take place from June 29 to July 31. This year, the most important performing arts event in the Catalan capital is celebrating, and for this reason its director, Leticia Martín, has devised a program thinking about "how to make the present serve to read the past and imagine the future". The 2026 Grec "will not make the past a monument, but a tool" and will have "Montjuïc at its heart but will extend throughout the city", says Martín, who has promoted the creation of a festival archive to gather all the material from this half-century of life.

Perhaps when they leave after buying a tortell at Can Carbasseres, or when they sunbathe on the steps of the Sant Esteve church on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25, the people of Olot will suddenly come across a birch woman. Let no one be alarmed: this is an action by British artist Olana Light, invited to the capital of La Garrotxa by the Sismògraf festival. Light's performance, titled The birch tree family, is one of the most notable events in the program and seeks to generate reflections in spectators and passers-by about the bond we have with nature. Submerged in the bark of a birch tree up to her knees, the artist will become a living sculpture that will walk silently through the center of Olot, wearing high-heeled shoes.

The Great Hall of the National Theatre of Catalonia (TNC) will host, from April 22 to May 31, Oedipus and Antigone with a Catalan company formed mainly by racialized performers. This is a sadly unusual situation that the director of the show, Carlota Subirós, wanted to break. "It's the first time my son has seen this in the thirty years I've been working," says actress Vicenta Ndongo, pointing to the show's poster, with the photograph of Kathy Sey and Babou Cham. "We have a very whitewashed image of classical Greece. We have constructed the fallacy that Europe is white. It wasn't in its origin and it isn't today," Subirós adds.

Actress Lola Herrera (Valladolid, 1935) explains that she fell and injured her hip, but that when the play begins all pains vanish. "It is a complete liberation to stop being myself and dive into the lives of other women with different problems," points out the performer, who has almost seven decades on stage. For a year now, Herrera has been touring the country with Camino a la Meca, a play written by Athol Fugard and directed by Claudio Tolcachir, which has just arrived at the Goya Theatre, where it will be seen from this Wednesday until May 24. The play is inspired by the true story of Helen Martins, a South African sculptor who fought to embrace the life she desired during the 70s. Accompanied by Natalia Dicenta and Carlos Olalla, Herrera has already performed it nearly 150 times and the audience has not stopped celebrating it.

The show L'herència, directed by Josep Maria Mestres and premiered at the Teatre Lliure last February, became this Monday the big winner of the 28th Critics' Awards for Performing Arts. The production has been awarded best show, best direction, and best supporting actor for Carles Martínez. In this year's edition, beyond L'herència, the awards have been widely distributed among the wide range of scenic proposals premiered in 2025. L'amor venia amb taxi by La Cubana has won the award for best musical and best costumes, Opereta imaginària by Albert Arribas has been recognized as best small-format play and best dramaturgy, while Leshi, by Atresbandes, has won in the new trends category. The Critics' Awards are organized by the digital platform Recomana and are chosen by active performing arts critics. This year, they were presented at a ceremony at the Centre Moral i Cultural del Poblenou.

For a decade they have been working non-stop. They have premiered nine shows of small, medium and large format, street and indoor, with the audience in the Italian style, standing, sitting in hammocks. "It has been a very prolific ten years. When we were five years old, it seemed like we were 84. Physically and mentally, we didn't feel emergent," explains Lluki Portas. She is one-third of the soul of Hermanas Picohueso, a company born in the Balearic Islands and also formed by Gal·la Peire and Aina Juanet. Artists and producers, they have made a niche for themselves in the theatre sector thanks, above all, to an innovative capacity, to incessantly seek new languages and to present scenic proposals, the result of deep research. Now they bring AHNI (Unidentified Human Actions) to the Mostra d'Igualada, their first production for a family audience but also for adults. The play will be shown on April 18th in various performances.

The journalist Montse Virgili (Tarragona, 1976), presenter of the program Las mujeres y los días from Catalunya Ràdio, makes her literary debut with Los pajaritos (La Magrana), a novel about the women who have marked her. From the fishmonger who was missing half an arm and the pastry chef who gave her sweets for no reason to the almost illiterate grandmother who wrote in Spanish, Virgili crafts a narrative collage that precisely captures childhood in the 80s and is, at the same time, a strong tribute to the women silenced by the patriarchy.

"Politicians move around in a monoplaça / go with Avant / trip over branches / pay when they shit / and howl if they are flattered! / Who cares! / Haven't you voted for them? / Who else? The scabs from the park?", writes the German playwright Wolfram Lotz (Hamburg, 1981) in one of his most radical and most performed plays in Europe, The Politicians (2019). Lotz, who has a repertoire of fewer than ten plays, is one of the fundamental Germanic voices in the contemporary scene; he has been translated into about fifteen languages and his shows have been seen in countries like Germany, France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. And, despite this strong international projection, the playwright has never been performed or published here. Until now. Aware of this deficiency, the Centre de les Arts Lliures of the Fundació Joan Brossa welcomed the project by director Leo V. Granados and translator Marc Villanueva Mir to bring Lotz's The Politicians" to the stage and to bookstores at the same time. The show has just premiered and can be seen until April 26, and the book has already been published by Arola Editors.

"We are excited by the idea of risk, the thought that we can make mistakes and that this can be a creative engine," says actor and director Nao Albet to explain why, together with his professional adventure partner Marcel Borràs, he has decided to dive into opera. The artistic duo — responsible for shows like Falsestuff (2018, Premi Max)— have written, directed, and will perform from April 15th to May 3rd Els Estunmen at the Teatre Lliure de Montjuïc. It is a contemporary opera with music by Fernando Velázquez, a live orchestra from the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and 21 people on stage.

Her name is Sara Cohen, she is a doctor specializing in brain disorders and she is tired of keeping the secret. The author of the literary saga "The Maid", which has sold millions of books worldwide, has become one of the most impactful best-sellers in recent years and has had a homonymous film starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, has revealed her true identity to the American newspaper USA Today". Until now, Cohen was hiding behind the pseudonym Freida McFadden. "I'm at a point in my career where I'm tired of this being a secret, of people debating whether I'm a real person or if I'm three men. I have nothing to hide," says the writer. The revelation comes shortly before the publication of the next book, "Dear Debbie" (in Catalan by Rosa dels Vents), and the confirmation of the second film of "The Maid", which Sweeney will once again star in.

At the first presentation of the novel Permagel (Club Editor, 2018), by Eva Baltasar, there was practically no one. "It was a devastating event. Afterwards, the four of us who were there went to dinner," explains journalist Natza Farré, who was in charge of hosting that event. Eight years later, the novel has become an editorial phenomenon and has gone beyond the literary field: Espai Texas is premiering the theatrical adaptation of the book directed by Victoria Szpunberg and starring Maria Rodríguez Soto. The show is a co-production by Dagoll Dagom – the company's latest – and Barc, and can be seen until June 28. Permagel recounts the story of a woman attached to reading and sex who, through her thoughts and reality, delves into lesbian desire, suicide, and motherhood. "It's an uncomfortable comedy, an unclassifiable work. It has a lucid and playful pessimism at the same time and contains high doses of pain that connect with our present," states Szpunberg.

With three decades of professional career behind him, actor Albert Triola (Mataró, 1973) knows the Catalan theater stages very well. He has worked with Dagoll Dagom, Guillem Clua, Sergi Belbel and Josep Maria Flotats and has been part of productions that have marked our country's billboard, such as Agost(2012) and Smiley (2014). Now he faces a new challenge, that of performing his first monologue. He does so directed by David Pintó in the production El lladre de llibretes, an adaptation of the homonymous novel by Gianni Solla about a helpless teenager in Mussolini's Italy. The production will be staged at the Versus theater until May 3.