Oldest puppetry company

Compagnia Carlo Colla e Figli (Italy) is a family of puppeteers, still represented today by two companies. The first registered public performance took place on 6 March 1835 in a show in Piedmont, although the probable date of the first (undocumented) public performance by the family’s ancestor Gaspare Carlo Gioacchino Colla is 1815.

This company has become the most lauded existing Italian marionette show active today, and is famous both at home and abroad for its re-thinking and re-interpreting of traditional shows.