Every year the director Armando Punzo creates his research theater in Tuscany, in the Volterra prison, with the inmate-actors of the Compagnia della Fortezza, which he himself founded 35 years ago and which has now become a real point of reference in Italy and abroad. This now consolidated reality has brought together 14 theater companies operating in Italian detention institutions over time. Every summer, at the end of July, in parallel with the staging of Punzo's show, directors, actors and cultural operators come to terms with his idea of theatre, giving rise to a passionate debate.
In the summer of 2023, the Atlantis theater project – Chapter 1 – Permanence took its first steps. Gianfranco Pannone with his troupe followed part of Armando Punzo's rehearsals with his actors inside the Volterra prison, up to his first debut, and at the same time the meetings with other directors coming from different theater-prison experiences. Per Aspera ad Astra is the name of the Masterclass organized by the Compagnia della Fortezza, which every year in Volterra brings together these realities in the name of a possible utopia; an experience that sees theater at the center of everything, to the point of canceling the prison taboo, replacing the word prisoner with the person.