Hidden behind Girona's City Hall, through a narrow passageway, stands the city's majestic Municipal Theatre. Locals consider it perfectly normal to access it through a dead-end alley next to a large bicycle parking area. But for those who have never been, it will surely be difficult to find. You have to cross the entire City Hall courtyard to reach the beautiful staircase that leads to the auditorium. This challenging entrance, not advertised from any point, embodies the long-standing inertia of a public theatre that Elena Carmona (Córdoba, 1981) has been working tirelessly for the past four years to open up beyond the city center. "We are a theatre open to the public and its surroundings, committed to contemporary creation," she explains passionately. "We don't want to be a closed space, but rather a porous one, a place for direct listening." Originally from Córdoba and a journalism graduate, Carmona moved to Barcelona two decades ago, where she trained and specialized in the management and direction of cultural institutions. After ten years as the artistic coordinator of El Graner, the creative hub managed by the Mercat de les Flors, the pandemic led her to fall in love with the Alt Empordà region. It was in this context that the first public competition was launched to direct the Girona Municipal Theatre after years of being managed by city council staff. She had a very clear mission: to open the theatre to the city and democratize culture. And Carmona's project, with its clear commitment to reaching out to neighborhoods and championing the arts, won. "I arrived wearing a mask. I knew Girona mainly from Temporada Alta," she recalls. "But sometimes I think I was very naive because I didn't really know the people of Girona." The Escénit

Carmona's first press conference was in the summer of 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, to present a series that marked his initial declaration of intent: Escénit. What for years had been an open-air circus program confined to picturesque spots in the Barri Vell (Old Quarter) suddenly expanded throughout the city—including the humblest neighborhoods—with free, high-quality performing arts shows by companies from all over Europe. For example, residents of the Central Park area, near the train station, enjoyed a performance by the Belgian duo Ludo and Arsène. parkour through the main light structures or balconies in the area. "The fact of coming from outside with a fresh perspective, few prejudices, and a clear idea of the project backed by winning the City Council competition, allowed me to take a risk and launch a project that someone from here wouldn't have dared to attempt," he explains.

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