Alfio Fichera

ALFIO FICHERA

Author, playwright, stage director, pedagogist and professor.

President and art director of Associazione
Culturale Teatro Scuola Bertolt Brecht.

Born in Catania in 1946, in 1967 he started attending the University of Pedagogy of Catania.

While still being a student, in 1970 he began working as a teacher of linguistic-expressive activities in experimental and integrated middle schools of the Etnean province. During this time, he wrote and staged his first educational theatre works.

He graduated in Pedagogy in 1972 with the dissertation The permanent revolution in Trockij. He got a qualification in Human Science and in History. The following year he founded the Gruppo Brecht 73 at the University of Pedagogy and debuted with the play Mann ist Mann. Later he staged more of Bertolt Brecht‘s works. During these years, educational experiences were confronted and interwined with the academic theatre.

In 1982 he left his position as middle school teacher to become professor of History and Philosophy in high schools.

Educational activities – Permanent education

In 1979 he founded the Associazione Culturale Teatro Scuola Bertolt Brecht in Catania. Through this cultural association, as president and art director, he worked intensely during the ’80s and in the first half of the ’90s.

The association, with registered office in Viale Africa 31, works as multi-purpose centre of linguistic-expressive activities and deals with permanent education, entertainment, educational theatre, contemporaty theatre, visual arts, music and oenology.

During this time, he conceived and staged the trilogy A proposito di quel diseducatore di Charles Perrault, based on his own essay of the same title, that studies Perrault’s flables in the light of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. He also established theatre workshops to build papier-mâché puppets and staged plays from his own original works that take Jean Piaget‘s research into the nature and the development of intelligence into account.

Starting from the second half of the ’90s, on behalf of various municipalities, he planned and organized various fun recreational activities, such as the Parchi Robinson, and summer activities, such as Robinson – L’isola dei ragazzi, Gioco-estate and Matite d’estate. Again on behalf of some municipalities, he carried out supplementary activities in mandatory schooling and first initiatives of school services, such as preschool and after-school activities.

Il fantasma scivolone by Alfio Fichera

In 2008 he planned initiatives in favour of public institutions benefitting from the National Operational Programmes – European Development Fund. In relation to the NOP Security for Development – Convergence Objective 2007-2013 (Axis 2, Operational Objective 2.6), in 2011 he developed the project Integrazione e Sicurezza on behalf of the town of Carlentini and in 2013 the project Spazio legalità on behalf of the town of Riposto.

Theatrical activities

He started writing and staging his first educational theatre works in the ’70s. These include Le forbici, L’arabo e l’americano and Jucannu, jucannu (still to be performed), as well as the aforementioned trilogy A proposito di quel diseducatore di Charles Perrault, consisting of Cappuccetto Rosso, il lupo, la nonna, il bastone, Barbableee!!! and Il gatto con gli stivali. Ovvero: Storia di un arrampicatore sociale.

The Abandoned Doll. Directed by Alfio Fichera

Starting from the ’80s, on behalf of various school districts, he focused on animation theatre, writing and staging Le mani parlano, and puppetry, with the original plays Malato immaginario, Serenate d’amore, Lollo e mamo, Il fantasma scivolone and Piùmenoperdiviso.

As for contemporary theatre, he conceived and staged plays from texts from Bertolt Brecht’s works and songs (Poesie e canzoni and Del povero B.B.), the theatrical performance Il primo novecento in poesia: Novaro, Gozzano, Govoni, Jahier, Moretti, Corazzini, Oxilia, revived some years later, but focused only on the poet from Turin and titled Nino Oxilia: l’amore, le donne, il sesso, le passioni di un uomo del primo novecento, and Eulalia Torricelli di Forlì, a civil theatre work, still to be performed.

Besides the production of original works, he staged plays from other authors’ works: by Bertolt Brecht (Man Equals Man (Mann ist Mann), Señora Carrar’s Rifles, The Horatians and the Curiatians, He Said Yes / He Said No and The Exception and the Rule), by Luigi Pirandello (The Oil Jar and The Man with the Flower in His Mouth), by Slawomir Mrozek (Out At Sea), by Gianni Rodari (Il vestito nuovo dell’imperatore), by Alfonso Sastre (The Abandoned Doll) and by Eugène Ionesco (The Bald Soprano).

Publishing activities

He wrote various essays and theatrical works published by Del Cerro from Pisa and Youcanprint.

In 2023 he wrote an essay titled La Chiesa Cattolica. Religione e filosofia. Il futuro della Chiesa in relazione al mutamento del senso comune e della scienza. Una riflessione sulla Chiesa Cattolica che nasce dalla lettura critica del libro il Ballo di padre Giuseppe Cavagna edito nel 1934.