Teatro “Cartiere Carrara”
It dates back to 1978 the first season of activity of Teatro Tenda, the historic structure that stood where the Cartiere Carrara Theater now stands, inaugurated by Steve Lacy’s concert.
An abandoned plot of land on the right bank of the Arno became the landing place for an old green and yellow circus tent that from that moment would stop hosting only acrobats and animals and start hosting actors and musicians.
Thus could begin, even in Florence, the “season of the tents”; that brief and magical period in which all the great cities of Italy, starting with Rome, saw the rise of these structures that seemed to be able to solve on their own the age-old problem of the lack of space for entertainment. The “tents” represented an outgrowth of the classical theatrical space, which although, in its comforts, was too “congealed” for the political and social reality of those years. For rock and light music in general, people went to discos and dance halls or – more often – took the train and car to cities with more facilities. The Tent was thus the right space to accommodate this whole set of new needs. This is evidenced by the many as heterogeneous initiatives that have taken place over the years.
Of the various chapiteaus (this is the French name by which the marquee is identified), the first Teatro Tenda was the smallest, containing about 1,600 people and characterized inside by a series of tiers of seats that ran around its perimeter, but it was precisely that marquee and its interior that were immortalized on the cover of Fabrizio De André’s now famous double album with PFM, a record recorded live at the Florentine marquee in early January 1979.
From ’92 a change of ownership and a subsequent turnover in management gave a strong acceleration along the road of structural improvement that led in 2002 to the birth of a new structure: the Saschall, the first name given to the theater by virtue of the meeting with the Sasch company. At the conclusion of the 10-year sponsorship contract with Sasch, from October 1, 2011, the theater became Obihall until January 1, 2019, when it became Tuscany Hall, thanks to the successful meeting with Tuscany, the beauty of paper, a brand of Cartiere Carrara , and from March 1, 2024, the new name changed to Teatro Cartiere Carrara.
