O Último Batimento

Show by Sofia Santos Silva presented by ACE – Escola de Artes. The page includes it in the block The Artistic Schools at TNSJ at Teatro Carlos Alberto.

Today 8 The first time 12 Repertoire(s): Lectures 16 New inclusion and social responsibility projects 18 Programming calendar inside and outside the doors 20 Kings' Concerts 34 There Are No More Springs 36 Sentinelles 38 Class Enemy 40 The End 42 Doomed Love 46 A Poet in the Form of So 48 False True Stories: A Pina Collage 50 I Am Hamlet 56 This Is a Genuine Hitler 58 Bérénice 60 Visitations: Manuel António Pina 64 MUSICAL-LY 66 Buchettino 68 FITEI at TNSJ 74 Something Is About to Happen 78 Invisible Places 80 The Artistic Schools at TNSJ 82 The Kiss on the Asphalt 84 Voice Festival 90 Territory IX 92 Educational Center 94 World Theatre Day/ Masked Ball 100 The King of Austria 101 Documentation Center 102 Readings in the Monastery 104 Dramatic Texts Collection 106 Stacker Collection 108 Conversations with Marta 110 Accessibility + Social Tickets/Solidarity Premiere 112 Guided Tours 114 Ubu Bar 116 Subscriptions 118 Próspero Card + TNSJ Friend Card + Theatre and Dance Schools Card 120 Customer Service and Box Office 121 TNSJ Technical Sheet 123 Patron BPI/“la Caixa” Foundation 126

Today, on the São João stage, Carlos Pimenta and the Ensemble are rehearsing The End, by António Patrício; in the Salão Nobre, Palmilha Dentada is finishing a new café-theatre show; in the Sala Branca, a technical meeting is taking place to prepare A Garota Não's concert; at Teatro Carlos Alberto, the set for Doomed Love, directed by Maria João Vicente, is being unloaded and assembled; in the rehearsal room, it is Theatre Clubs day, promoted by the Educational Center, after an intense weekend, with Atelier 200, at the Escola Artística de Soares dos Reis; in a room lent by the legendary Clube Fenianos Portuenses, Victor Hugo Pontes directs the rehearsal of False True Stories, with our actors and the singing and dancing words of Manuel António Pina; at the Monastery of São Bento da Vitória, there is a site meeting, with designers, contractor, site inspector and the TNSJ Buildings and Maintenance team. Today, we contact the finalist candidates for the coordination of our Educational Center, after the jury's decision; we close the dossier with the activities proposal for the Fundação “la Caixa”, which includes new social responsibility projects; we receive the audience figures for Class Enemy, which sold out the TeCA for two short weeks; we meet with our colleagues at DGArtes to deal with the award ceremony for the Guillermo Heras Prize to Mário Moutinho; we consider the application of a project with homeless people to a social innovation funding line; we decide to buy the slightly exorbitant transatlantic trips so that biographer Ruy Castro can speak to us, live, about Nelson Rodrigues (videoconference? “The theatre is shamelessly body,” argues Eric Bentley); at a time when we are deprived of the spaciousness of our Benedictine monument, we assess the use of rehearsal spaces by independent companies and production structures; as for me, I still fulfill an age-old tradition: drafting — late and at odd hours — the text for the opening of this agenda. PEDRO SOBRADO Chairman of the Board of Directors PROGRAMMING JAN—JUL 2026  9 Today

A single day lived from within São João allows us to see almost the entire season — and what is seen from the administration is often limited. Today, an entire team, scattered across various buildings — ours and others, lent by institutional fellow travelers such as the Fenianos or the União de Freguesias do Centro Histórico do Porto — is jointly involved in the development of the activity we present, so well written and designed, in this programming booklet: from the most circumspect departments of Accounting and Public Procurement to the agitators of Communications, passing through the machine room that is the small but mighty Production team or the elite troops of the Stage. Some have just landed on this star with its own light, as happens with some performers in our new production; others are saying goodbye after many years of coexistence, leaving for the private sector. (Today, we are preparing the internal communication of Abílio Barbosa's departure, an electrician who arrived here 25 years ago.) Today, all I had to start this text was a famous line by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Pull your chair up to the edge of the precipice and I will tell you a story.” Used and abused in creative writing workshops for aspiring writers, the phrase seems to sum up the condition of theatre today: the world on the brink of the abyss, and us telling stories. The formulation also evokes that particular combination of intimacy and danger that theatre induces. We invite our fellow citizens to settle comfortably into the seats of the climate-controlled halls of TNSJ to listen to false true stories and, in a hush, the sound of a siren. If we are at the edge of the precipice, our attention increases and sharpens. Intimacy is forged in risk. Welcome, today and always. 10  TEATRO NACIONAL SÃO JOÃO

The first time I entered this theatre was on 24 October 1996. I sat in the 2nd balcony, seat C21, to see The Great Theatre of the World. I remember thinking: “This is the biggest theatre in the world.” Since then, whenever I entered here as a spectator, I brought with me that wonder — and the unconfessed desire to one day be able to be part of this house. However, I never truly thought I would become its artistic director. Perhaps I imagined that this could happen when I was older. Between my first time in this theatre and today, everything happened quickly. So quickly that it feels like it was yesterday. In the same