The Almada Theatre Company, supported by the ESPHERA Group, presents the 26th Almada Theatre Festival. As is customary, there is an excellent programme with nine premieres, ten countries and a series of theatre performances, and more, scattered across various theatres in Almada and Lisbon.

Genet's "The Maids" performed by Volksbühne from Berlin and directed by Luc Bondy, featuring the great actress Edith Clever, and an adaptation of Lautréamont's "The Songs of Maldoror", directed by Matthias Langhoff and interpreted by André Wilms, are two of the most important performances from this year's programme of the Almada Festival, whose 26th edition will take place from 4 to 18 July at various theatres in Almada and Lisbon.
In addition to Volksbühne (one of the main historic German companies that was led by Max Reynhardt and Erwin Piscator), which appears for the first time in Portugal, other great novelties are planned for this year: the premieres of the Saint Petersburg Satire Theatre (with a piece by Lyudmila Ulitskaya inspired by Chekhov), the National Francophone Theatre of Belgium (play by Jean-Marie Piemme), the French director and actor Jacques Martial with a play by Aimé Césaire, the Virgilio Sieni dance company from Florence, and the Miragens Teatro collective from Angola.      There are also returning companies among the foreign productions, such as Teatro Corsario from Valladolid and the famous tg STAN from Antwerp.  Mario Mattia Giorgetti will stage a play by Stefano Massini, a young Italian playwright who in 2005 received the most important Italian dramaturgy award: the Pier Vittorio Tondelli. Massini's work has been translated to Portuguese, French, German and Czech. The French director Robert Cantarella and actress Thérèse Crémieux play the lead roles in one of the premieres of this year's festival: Hermann Broch's "Zerline's Tale" will be presented to the world in Almada.   In addition to this world premiere, this year the festival will put on another eight absolute premieres from Portugal in a total of nine productions: two from the Almada Theatre Company, two plays of Valère Novarina by Jorge Silva Melo from Artistas Unidos, a co-production by Culturgest and the Almada Festival, Mike Bartlett's "Contractions" directed by Solveig Nordlund, a new production by Teatro Praga in cooperation with the São Luiz Municipal Theatre ("Demo - a Praga musical"), "Film Noir" by André Murraças, a production of the D. Maria II National Theatre and a dance performance by Oblivion, directed by Jean Paul Bucchieri. This is the biggest number of premieres at the festival to date.       We should also highlight the participation of three other companies: Cornucópia with Arthur Schnitzler's "Fraulein Else"; "Vieira da
  Silva par elle même" with Maria José Paschoal; and Circolando with the Honour Performance (a repetition from last year) of "Interior Room" and a new performance called "Charanga".
This year, 10 countries are taking part in the festival.  In addition to Portugal:  Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Argentina, Chile and Angola.

More information available at ctalmada.pt