One of the most relevant institutions in the Milanese cultural landscape -- besides fashion designers, furniture designers, magazine art directors with a Messianic flair, celebrity restaurateurs, TV skanks and their agents-slash-p1mps, billionaire soccer players and ageless socialites functionally-disfigured-by-plastic -surgery-so-bad-an-American -surgeon-would-get-his-a$$-sued -in-30-seconds, well besides all these cultural Titans, Milan also has a very important institution: Piccolo Teatro (literally: small theatre), the late great Giorgio Strehler's baybay that still cranks out very cool things on a fairly regular basis.
Il Piccolo Teatro -- in Milanese-speak: "Il Piccolo", nobody here calls it il Piccolo Teatro, in the photo above you can see its older location a few steps from Castello Sforzesco, still in use, but now most of the good stuff happens at a larger, pig-ugly (and that's an insult to the pigs) apparently modern building in OC's neighborhood of Brera -- has introduced its 2007-2008 season today (English-language page not up to date as of the time of this writing): Luca Ronconi, very well known by opera lovers, will direct a new version of The Odissey, Odissea, and a new Fahrenheit 451.
Shakespearean goodness galore, thanks to the coproduction of Hamlet & The Tempest, Sam Mendes director. Among the superstar director roster, Peter Brook, Lev Dodin, Lluis Pasqual. There are some really interesting Italians -- Toni Servillo and secksay older man Franco Branciaroli -- and lots of plays by Carlo Goldoni, too, thanks to Arlecchino, La trilogia della villeggiatura, Il ventaglio and La famiglia dell’antiquario.