Definitions such as art theatres, exceptional theatres, little theatres, or independent theatres between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries refer to non-commercial experiments, especially in the European theatre. In Italy, their season was short-lived: The first was Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Teatro degli Indipendenti, while the most famous was Pirandello’s Teatro degli Odescalchi. Often small, organized as private clubs to avoid censorship, they all had economic difficulties and generally brief lifespans. In Europe, however, they marked a significant phenomenon, privileging a repertoire that was often not only intellectually but also “politically” engaging: plays that spoke of new ways of being men and women, of new relationships between human beings. They corresponded with demands for change that were not only theatrical. In Italy, however, this chapter argues, the rise of the little theaters took place during the years of Fascism, so their innovations were cultural rather than political and lacked the extra-theatrical values that had been fundamental to other European art theatres.

“Mussolini the Impresario, I: Fascism and the Art Theatre” retraces Mussolini's first incursions into the world of theatrical sponsorship with two Roman playhouses: Luigi Pirandello’s Teatro d’Arte di Roma and Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Teatro Sperimentale degli Indipendenti. Casting these early endeavors as exploratory missions to determine what kinds of artistic partnerships – and what kinds of plays – could benefit the fascist “revolution,” Gaborik uses performance analysis, official and private correspondence, and journalistic reporting to reconstruct developments in the regime’s patronage schemes and Mussolini's collaboration strategies. These case studies reveal complex negotiations, agreements between intellectual courtiers and their king, rather than a simplistic wielding of the authoritarian’s carrot or stick. Further, through a focus on Pirandello’s and Bragaglia’s revolutionary methods, particularly their championing of the theatre director (a figure then unfamiliar in Italy), the chapter highlights il Duce’s desire for innovation and his optimism that high art could help achieve his political ends.