Agenda

International Conference
Intertheatricality. Paradigmatic adaptations of theatrical techniques

12-13 November 2025
12 November (Palazzo Cosulich)
13 November (Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza)

The main theme is the diverse and complex interrelationships between early modern theatrical practices and non-theatrical art forms, as well as other performative practices, including liturgical and carnival acts. In particular, attention will focus on the extent to which “forms of thought” and theatrical structures were adopted in other contexts. Such adaptations can be seen as practices of staging theatrical texts and images and as compositional and organisational principles, for example in the design of stage sets, the dramaturgy of the plot, the constellation of characters, the division of scenes and the economy of attention. At the same time, such processes can also be observed in the opposite direction, when non-theatrical contexts influence theatre, for example when medical, natural philosophical or technological knowledge flows into dramaturgical content and/or theatrical practice. We summarise these movements of mutual transfer and adaptation with the term intertheatricality. In this way, we adapt the concept of intertextuality, hitherto largely confined to the field of literary studies, and its variant of interpictoriality, transferred to visual works, to the field of the performing arts and its overlaps with other art forms and cultural areas. Intermediate constellations are constitutive of intertheatricality as a figure of thought that describes not only the references of one text to others, but also those that transcend media boundaries, such as the relationship between text and image, but also the relationship with other aesthetic forms and performative practices.
 It is precisely on these transdisciplinary intersections, whose diversity and complexity have not yet been exhaustively explored by research, that we will focus. An example is the adaptation of actual theatrical figures, such as the masks of the Commedia dell'Arte, into texts and images, which often goes hand in hand with the adoption of the combinatorial repertoire logic of this theatrical form in the new context.
The aim of the conference is to show the wide range of processes of adaptation and theatrical transposition in the early modern period and to analyse them in depth. Contributions that trace this phenomenon in the various spheres of art, literature and culture of the early modern period are expressly encouraged, ranging from garden art to music, from liturgical to court productions, from theatrically staged portraits to political satire and beyond.