Piccolo Teatro (Milan)

[6] Piccolo Teatro was founded by theatre impresario Paolo Grassi and actor and director Giorgio Strehler, along with Mario Apollonio, Virgilio Tosi and Nina Vinchi.

According to Grassi, the founders were theatrical and political idealists that sought to "put forward theoretical principles and practical standards of conduct radically different from those which up until then had governed activity in Italy".

Offering affordable tickets and productions fraught with risk,[8] Piccolo Teatro became renewed for "revitalizing popular interest in the classics of the Italian stage".

[2] Its company became well known for its productions of Carlo Goldoni and Luigi Pirandello in particular, and of Bertolt Brecht, Eugene O'Neill, T. S. Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, Molière, Georg Büchner and Peter Weiss.

[9] On the occasion of the theatre's 60th anniversary in 2007, the President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano granted the "Ente Autonomo Piccolo Teatro di Milano-Teatro d'Europa" patronage for the entire duration of his seven-year presidential term.