Loving the Teatre Lliure: fifty years!

With age, thoughts often arise about "I confess I've lived." This is a very personal reflection. Beyond economics and law, which have influenced my academic career, I've always loved the performing arts, and theater in particular, which I still have a taste for. I love theater, and the Teatre Lliure in particular. The years of training and study, as a resident of the Gràcia neighborhood where I lived, have helped me maintain my admiration for the actors and actresses who have formed the core of the Lliure. And especially for one creator, Fabià Puigserver, who, despite not taking his bow on stage, was clearly visible because his soul inhabited, and still inhabits, the Lliure.

Exactly one year from now, on May 22, 2026, it will be fifty years since the creation of the Cooperativa de la Lleialtat, the seed that gave birth to the Lliure. And look where it all started, for the last six years I've had the chance to preside over this theater I've admired so much. Some people still ask me: "What makes a person like you enjoy being surrounded by showbiz experts, creatives, and want to experience at this point the problems of balancing the Foundation's budget, having a solvent administration, and top-flight artistic directors... if you have nothing to gain financially?" The answer is simple. For me, it's the return of everything the theater has given me. Every Saturday of my life in Barcelona, ​​I went to the theater, which was supposed to make me see the world through a different lens; ask myself questions and search for answers that weren't in books, through the experience of a performance. The student room, lined with brochures and posters of the works he had seen, surrounded the work table, from where he occasionally looked up at a universe he needed to keep in mind above his study obligations.

In 2026 we will celebrate 50 years of the Teatre Lliure and 25 of sharing Gràcia and Montjuïc

The Lliure is not only free because of the mental nourishment provided by its DNA, but also because of the creativity enabled by its mechanical infrastructure, designed by Puigserver, which lifts any physical restrictions in favor of theatrical imagination. A quarter of a century ago, the Lliure moved to Montjuïc, to the Palau de l'Agricultura. A palace that will soon enter its 20th century, with the Barcelona City Council's transfer of an emblematic building that we love to preserve and enhance. Fifty years of the Teatre, twenty-five years of sharing Gràcia and Montjuïc, and a century of the current building; all of this will happen around 2026.

Hence, the Board I lead has commissioned some of its most significant patrons to make proposals for commemorating so many upcoming milestones. Celebrations that must serve to rethink who we are and what we do, as contributors to the country's culture in today's world and, above all, to think about the future.

From the DNA of the founding group, from civil society, and with the help of the represented administrations—City Council, Generalitat, Provincial Council, and State—we will have to rise to the occasion to renew our commitment to all our obligations: facilities, artistic projects, and citizen contributions. All of this is part of a combination of governing what doesn't belong to any particular administration because it already belongs to all of society, and we want to celebrate it next year.