Theatrical activity has been a prominent feature of  Italian Canadian cultural life in Toronto, and it has been undertaken at UTM since the early years of the College. Plays by Moravia and Campanile, directed by G. Pugliese, and dramas by Bracco and Ginzburg, directed by the late L. Marchionne Picchione, were staged in 1976-78. But it was in the academic year 1986-87 that annual performances were started on a continuing basis.

 The enormous success of the performances induced us to consider the theatrical activity from a didactic perspective. We reached the conclusion that the combination comedy-performance was an excellent tool for teaching language, a dramatic text or culture. For this reason, we decided to obtain academic status for this activity, which was granted. Accordingly, in 1992-93,  two courses, under the heading of Italian Comic Theatre, were created: one that covers Italian comic theatre from its origins to Goldoni, and another that deals with the subsequent period to the present. Two more courses were added in 1995.  In all cases, the production of a play is a principal requirement.

 There are three dimensions to these courses: literary, linguistic and performative. As products of the imagination, the plays are analyzed as literary artifacts, keeping in mind, however, that a play is fully actualized only when performed. Since they communicate their message almost exclusively through dialogue, the plays are in turn used as vehicles for generating communication among the students in a like manner. To achieve an effective performance, all the aspects of the mise-en-scène become objects of study. These range from lighting to props, from music to the iconographic elements that are most appropriate to convey the essence of the work produced; from costumes to movements on stage, from characterization to voice control and the myriad other things necessary to express a mood, capture an emotional nuance or generate hearty laughter.

 The ‘troupe’, composed of two professors and students of Italian (Professor Bancheri and Professor Pugliese), took the name of Maschere Duemondi (“Two-World Players”) in 1992, and usually holds 6-8 performances: one for High School students, and the remainder for the communities in the Greater Toronto Area.