Piera Mungiguerra

Piera Mungiguerra was born in Milan. Alongside her university studies in Philology, she began training in theatre. In 2005 she led a workshop on ancient theatre at the University of Pavia, and the following year taught stage movement at the CRT Community Theatre Academy in Milan. In 2007 she made her debut at CRT Teatro dell’Arte with a study of Euripides’ The Trojan Women, for which she wrote the text and directed the production. 

In addition to spoken theatre, she works extensively in musical theatre. Among her projects, she staged Mozart’s Così fan tutte with musicians and singers from the Accademia della Scala and the Milan Conservatory. She later directed Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with music by Mendelssohn, performed with the ensemble Spira mirabilis in a co-production with Bassano Opera Estate and Mittelfest. In 2017 she created Racconti, with music by Ohana and de Falla, in Lugano with the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana. In 2018, in a co-production between Teatro Fraschini and Wratislavia Cantans in Wrocław, she staged Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat. 

In 2013 she received a Roche Continents fellowship at the Salzburg Festival. In 2017 she founded the association Cantiere Birnam to promote research in musical theatre. In 2019, at the Fantasio directing festival, she won both the Audience Award and the EstroTeatro Jury Prize for La scomparsa degli Smith, based on The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco. In 2021 she was selected as a finalist in the Biennale College Drammaturgia Under 40 programme in Venice. 

In 2022 and 2024 she worked as dramaturg at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano on productions by Liv Ferracchiati: Hedda. Gabler Come una pistola carica and Come tremano le cose riflesse nell’acqua. In 2023 she co-wrote with him the dramaturgy for Medea, una madre, co-produced by Teatro di Napoli and TPE. In 2024 she staged Né padri né figli, adapted from Turgenev’s novel, at Campo Teatrale, serving as both director and dramaturg. 

With composer Jason Barabba, she has written the libretto for the opera Artemisia fecit. She is currently working on Antigone by Sophocles in Paris and on Three Sisters by Chekhov in Turin.