The course aims to highlight the constant presence of women in the theater since its origins, despite their exclusion from the stage until at least the sixteenth century.

After a brief historical excursus that traces the origins of the theater, some female mythological and historical figures will be analyzed with concrete examples of their representation on the contemporary Italian stage.

We will study the Medea of Franca Rame, the Cassandra of Thierry Salmon and the Antigone of the Motus Company, as well as some intrusions of history in female theatrical activity through the figures of the nun Roswitha di Gandersheim; the actress Eleonora Duse and the painter Artemisia Gentileschi.

The comparison between staged drama and the female mind aims to develop an original critical approach and a different point of view in the interchange between myth, history and contemporaneity.