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The actual transformation of the Institute of Popular Drama from an association of privates into a Foundation, thanks to the contribution of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di San Miniato, the municipality of San Miniato, and the Institute itself, has the purpose of perpetrating and renewing the tradition which turned the Festival into one of the main events for the diffusion of Christian culture.
Now, 55 years later, it is necessary to deal with a very different historical, social and cultural situation.
For an institution like this, inspired by Christian values, it is vital to set the conditions for a real dialogue between the people, through artistic experiences -inspired by past accomplishments- able to understand the present and offer "a theatre about the problems and spiritual unrest of the modern age" able to see "the signs of our time, whatever culture they come from" as Don Giancarlo Ruggini wrote more than thirty years ago.
The main event is still the Theatre Festival, but a number of different intiatives will be connected to it, spread over the whole year, so that the experience will not be limited to a few days of performances.
 Symposiums, seminars, conferences, theatre courses, exhibitions, readings, other shows, editorial activities are only a few of the intiatives planned, in collaboration with other Entities (both territorial, cultural, social, and religious). The Foundation plans to become an important point of reference and a propulsive force, involving the same popular and youthful base that inspired the eminently educational mission defined by the founders. 
The importance of San Miniato as a school district is very relevant: the Foundation is collaborating with schools to involve more and more young people in the theatre, hopefully not only as audience members.
Moreover, national and international collaborations are planned with drama schools, cultural institutions and state theatres, through a large number of initiatives (promotion, workshops, research, teaching, publication of plays, competitions for new "Theatre of the Spirit" writers). The aim is to create a real "Cultural Institute" as a reference for anyone who seeks, through culture and art, a higher meaning to life.
"In San Miniato, theatre was always engaged towards an open, unrestful spiritualism, asking for confrontation and dialectic." (Roberto De Monticelli).
"There were of course, as for vineyards, good and bad years: but no easy concessions were made, no abdications towards a basic theme: there was especially a strong conviction for the theatre to be a source of nourishment for the spirit, a direct and immediate means of communication, an attestation of a human season..." (Paolo Emilio Poesio).
"A spiritual, Christian theatre, not apologetic, not attached to usual formulas but lively, free, dangerous, open to error, to scandal, to detect the truth, a theatre that sees today's problem in the light of eternity" (Achille Fiocco).
These are the words of three illustrious theatre critics, among many others who reviewed the shows and events created by the Institute: they are important and flattering assessments about our past achievements, but they also represent the indications for the Foundation to follow in the future.
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