March brings the opening of a new performance venue in Lisbon with the partnership of Dona Maria II National Theatre, the return of Boca Aberta (a project aimed at children and the wider community around them), touring shows and book launches.
In March, the Dona Maria II begins its programming in the Sala Estúdio Valentim de Barros, a new performance venue in the city of Lisbon, located in the former Miguel Bombarda psychiatric hospital. This is an initiative of LARGO Residências, in partnership with the Dona Maria II National Theatre and the São José Local Health Unit, with institutional support from ESTAMO.
This is the second venue in the capital to host the Dona Maria II programming in 2025, in addition to the Variedades Theatre.
The opening, between the 27th and the 30th of March, is marked by the event Tributo a Valentim, a four-day programme in honour of the dancer after whom the new hall is named, who was hospitalised at Miguel Bombarda until the end of his life for being homosexual. The event and the naming of this new place for the arts is a symbolic tribute to the ongoing struggle for freedom and diversity.
Besides exhibitions, talks, concerts, performances, cinema, visits and workshops, the programme includes the premiere of Dona Maria II's new production, Auto das Anfitriãs, by Inês Vaz and Pedro Baptista. It's a play based on the text by Luís de Camões, which was already a derivation of Plauto's Amphitryon. Auto das Anfitriãs re-reads this lineage of narratives that goes back to the myth of Amphitryon and Alcmene with a contemporary perspective, while celebrating Camões on the 500th anniversary of his birth.
Outside Lisbon, March also marks the return of Boca Aberta, Dona Maria II's project dedicated to children, organised in partnership with Fundação “la Caixa” / BPI, Plano Nacional das Artes and the municipalities of Lagos, Ourém and Ponte de Lima. In 2025, this initative includes two new shows - Cabe mais um? and Não se pode! Não se pode! - in which performers and mediators from the partner municipalities take part; as well as ‘Conversas de Boca Aberta’ and a workshop for children's educators, strengthening this project's aim of creating networks and fostering artistic creation for children across the country.
The tour of Quis saber quem sou – um concerto teatral, by Pedro Penim, a musical look at the Carnation Revolution on its 50th anniversary, based on political and intervention songs continues across the country. After Faro, Penafiel and Guimarães, the show will be performed in Covilhã and Viseu.
And Dona Maria II's publishing project, which already reached a hundred publications, continues to value Portuguese dramaturgy and research into theatre and the performing arts. This month sees the release of the text of the aforementioned Auto das Anfitriãs and the long out-of-print set of essays Teatro para um Teatro de Combate, by Luiz Francisco Rebello - an essential document for understanding the hardships imposed on Portuguese theatre by the dictatorship.
