In 2009, conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demoted the publicly-funded Italian Theatre Insitute (or ETI) to "disposable" status, hacking funding for the arts considerably. ETI promoted Italian companies abroad, managed the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, the Duse theatre in Bologna, and Rome's Teatro Valle--the oldest theatre in Rome, located between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, Campo dei Fiori and the Senate.
A changing cast of theater workers — actors, seamstresses, lighting technicians and prop masters — are protesting the privatization of a stage once graced by some of Europe’s greatest thespians, from Sarah Bernhardt to Vittorio Gassman.