Perché a te? Un musical per Francesco | Teatro Celebrazioni

On Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 9:00 pm, Bologna’s Teatro Celebrazioni hosts Perché a te? A Musical for Francis.

A production by Associazione Se guardo il cielo APS, by Massimo D’Abrosca, Luigi Salerno, Cecilia Ronchetti and Maria Sofia Cuppi.

Directed by Massimo D’Abrosca.

Choreography by Claudia Rota.

Eight hundred years after the death of Saint Francis, Francis is more alive than ever.

“Why you? Why you? Why you? … Why does the whole world follow you, Francis?”. The insistent question asked by Brother Masseo, echoed in one of the best-known episodes of the Fioretti, perhaps expresses the more or less explicit question of anyone who still finds themselves surprised and fascinated by the saint of Assisi. What is the secret of this “success”? This question lies at the heart of the musical Perché a te? A Musical for Francis, accompanied by a rich experience of fraternity.

In a complex and challenging time, “swaying between achievements and defeats, torn between hope and despair” (Saint John Paul II), the world, wounded as it may be, still seeks a path towards renewed authenticity. Francis is a young man like many others, unwilling to give up his dreams, tirelessly searching for happiness and ultimately finding it. A fulfilled man who “achieves peace with God, with others, with himself and with the cosmos”. A man who still has something to say and to offer today.

Yet the fascination of Francis does not lie in Francis himself. Not in his appearance, his talents or his heroic deeds. It lies in the Gospel rediscovered through his life, in the voice of God capable of revealing the deepest meaning of life and giving him joy. The musical retraces the saint’s story through writing closely inspired by the Franciscan Sources, intertwined with the compelling power of contemporary music.

A common thread connects one scene to the next: the voice of God, which Francis gradually learns to recognise as music growing ever stronger within his heart, until it blossoms into the Canticle of Brother Sun that he will offer to the world. “To live like Francis” means rediscovering the purest essence of his insight: life as a gift to be protected, every creature as possessing a dignity to be respected, and all of us as “brothers and sisters” within the embrace of a God who loves us.