THE PLAY’S THE THING: Despite her formidable workload as Dior’s artistic director of women’s collections, Maria Grazia Chiuri is moonlighting with a personal project: restoring a historic theater in her hometown of Rome.
The Teatro della Cometa, or Comet Theater, went dark during the pandemic and the designer purchased the 250-seat, horseshoe-shaped venue in order to give it a second life.
“I want to renovate this little theater because it’s an important part of the history of Rome, and I hope that next year it will be finished,” Chiuri told WWD. “It has a beautiful history, and there’s also a link with New York.”
She characterized the investment as “something to give back to my city, which I really love and also because it’s a creative project.”
The designer lamented that performance spaces can be overlooked by tourists in a city rich in historical monuments, and also by locals because there is so much entertainment content now available on streaming services.
“I think theater is something very important because it’s a forum for creativity, and a forum for the public to gather around it,” she said.
As for the renovation, “I didn’t expect that it would be so intense. Because to renovate a theater is something very complex, especially in Rome because we have very strict restrictions for all the buildings. The complexity is crazy, but I’m very happy.”
