You can count the number of editions of Esta noite grita-se on the fingers – but you’ll need both hands now. In 2026, this feast of staged readings of theatre texts will mark 10 years of intense and well-attended events featuring a diverse range of texts, from classical to contemporary drama, held in theatres, libraries, warehouses, bars and wine cellars. A feast that celebrates the oral nature of the stage: the performers’ voices evoke the presence of the authors, and the words are savoured as if at a sumptuous banquet. Instead of plates and glasses, dreams and images, insecurities and intimate moments are shared. A fragile endeavour where risk is the norm and the text strives to remain alive, right under the audience’s noses.
This year, the São Luiz Theatre is joining in the celebrations over two weekends: on the first, a series of ‘Greatest Hits’-style readings, revisiting some of the standout moments from this jaw-dropping decade: we return to the unforgettable Midsummer [a play with songs] by David Greig, move on to the comically disconcerting The Lying Kind by Anthony Neilson, and the striking Lacuna by Luz Ribeiro, winner of the 2024 New Playwriting Award for Women Playwrights; on the second weekend, we round off the festivities with the 6th edition of this award, which every year unveils new voices and bolsters the presence of female playwrights in a field that remains predominantly male – with the launch of the 2026 winning play in book form and a reading of the text.
In the end, we don’t clear the table: there’s always a little water or wine left over, so we can return to the texts as if exploring an unfamiliar place — listening to what is already in motion there and, without fixating on it too much, letting it unfold before others.
Programme
20 to 22 November
‘Best of’ Commemorative Readings at the São Luiz Municipal Theatre
20 November, 7.30pm | Midsummer [a play with songs], by David Greig – buy ticket
21 November, 7.30pm | The Lying Kind, by Anthony Neilson – buy ticket
22 November, 4pm | Lacuna, by Luz Ribeiro – buy ticket
20 to 29 November – Exposição Fotográfica
RESSONÂNCIA, Um olhar sobre 10 anos de Esta noite grita-se
Sónia Godinho
Over the course of ten years, Sónia Godinho has documented the Festim Esta noite grita-se festival, creating a visual universe that seeks not to document the event, but to reinterpret it. Just as a staged reading transforms the dramatic text into a live performance, so photography transforms that performance into an image, extending it beyond the fleeting moment.
Ressonância arises from this encounter between two languages that inhabit time in distinct ways. Each photograph arises from the interplay between the event and the gaze that interprets it, prolonging a presence that resists disappearance. A new creative gesture in which the ephemeral finds a different duration and in which the photographer’s gaze reveals that which remains invisible once the spectacle has ended.
28 to 29 November
Saturday, 7.30pm and Sunday, 4pm – buy ticket
Reading of the winning play from the 6th edition of the New Playwriting Prize for Women Playwrights
See the full programme at cepatorta.org.
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