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The Vagina Monologues with Lella Costa, the play by V (formerly Eve Ensler), returns to the stage at Teatro della Cometa, at Via del Teatro di Marcello 4, from November 3 to 8, 2026: from Tuesday 3 to Friday November 6 at 21:00, Saturday, November 7, at 19:00, Sunday, November 8, at 17:00. You reach the theater on bus lines 30, 4, 118, 160 and 170, Via del Teatro di Marcello stop, or with Metro B to Colosseo and then a five-minute walk toward Piazza Venezia. Prices are published on the venue's official website, and tickets are sold through Teatro della Cometa's online box office, linked from the show page. Lella Costa is the director and artistic coordinator and is on stage at every performance, with a cast of performers that changes from night to night.
Language: performed in Italian. No English version or English surtitles are announced.

Six performances, a single fixed lead, a play that is 30 years old and that has a precise history in Italy, one that began right in Rome. The Cometa, the theater created by Mimì Pecci Blunt and reopened in 2025 after a long restoration, opens its November with one of the most recognizable titles of contemporary theater. Below: the show, its history, a portrait of Lella Costa, the hall and everything you need to plan the evening.
The Vagina Monologues with Lella Costa runs at Teatro della Cometa for six performances, from November 3 to 8, 2026, and is the first stop of a relay that continues to Pontedera, Bologna and finally Milan.
The calendar published by the Cometa lists four consecutive weekday evenings, from Tuesday 3 to Friday November 6, with curtain at 21:00. On Saturday, November 7, the time moves earlier to 19:00, and on Sunday, November 8, to 17:00. If you want to have dinner at leisure after the show, Saturday is the most convenient performance, and if you're coming from outside Rome, Sunday afternoon is the easiest to fit around your trip.
The theater's description speaks of a relay born from the collaboration between the Cometa and Teatro Carcano in Milan, the theater Lella Costa has co-directed artistically since 2021 with Serena Sinigaglia. The route starts in Rome, passes through Pontedera and Bologna and finally lands in Milan.
The show page links to the theater's online box office, where you choose the date and seat. Prices are published there, and it's best to check them when buying, because rates can vary between sections of the orchestra and the galleries.
The Vagina Monologues grew out of the interviews Eve Ensler conducted with more than 200 women about the body, sexuality, relationships and violence, and since its first appearance in the 1990s it has become a reference point in the debate on women's rights and freedom.
According to the most widespread account, Ensler wrote the first draft in 1996, after conversations that began with friends and later widened to the stories of other women. The material gathered was not turned into a single plot: it remained a series of voices, each with its own tone, age and experience.
The text is made up of a variable number of monologues, performed by different actresses. Each monologue revolves around the same theme, approached from angles ranging from irony to pain: the first period, the relationship with one's own body, love, birth, pleasure, violence. Some pieces are choral, others are confessions by a single voice.
A little-known feature is that the text has never stood still. Every year the author added new monologues devoted to specific situations around the world, and in 2003, for example, one was written on the condition of women in Afghanistan. The version you see today is therefore the result of continuous updating.
The author has said that in 1998 the meaning of the work changed: from a celebration of the female body it became the basis of a movement against violence against women. From there came V-Day, the movement that every year, starting on Valentine's Day, organizes benefit performances whose proceeds go to support centers and programs.
Those who don't know the text often expect a gloomy show. In fact the writing alternates moments of open comedy, almost cabaret, with passages of great harshness. It's a balance that suits the register of Lella Costa well, an actress who comes precisely from monologue and humor.
In this edition Lella Costa directs and coordinates the Monologues artistically and takes part in every performance, joined by a cast of performers who rotate across the evenings.
The rotating cast formula is consistent with the history of the text, born to be read by many different voices. Each night the makeup of the company may change, and with it the color of the individual monologues. The names of the performers for each date are not published on the theater's page: if you want an evening with a particular actress, ask the box office.
The Cometa's description stresses that, 30 years after the stage debut, Lella Costa returns to a work that deeply marked her career. The theater calls her the Italian interpreter of the text and a protagonist, alongside Eve Ensler, of the first V-Day in New Orleans.
The stated aim of the project is to bring together different generations, experiences and sensibilities around a text that turns individual words into collective experience. A production with an actress born in 1952 at the center and performers of different ages around her makes that handover visible, if only on stage.
Lella Costa, born Gabriella Costa, was born in Milan on September 30, 1952, and is an actress, author, writer and voice actress, best known for her stage monologues.
After high school at the Liceo Carducci in Milan, studies in Literature and a diploma from the Accademia dei Filodrammatici, she attended courses at the Milan theater school Quelli di Grock, founded by Maurizio Nichetti. She made her debut with her first monologue as an actress in 1980 and in the early years worked on contemporary authors such as Renzo Rosso and Sławomir Mrożek, between radio and cabaret.
In March 1987 her first show as author as well opened, Adlib, followed by Coincidenze in 1988 and Malsottile in 1990. In 1992 she went on stage with Due, the only case in which she is not alone on stage. Then came Magoni, Stanca di guerra, Un'altra storia, Precise parole: a repertoire that makes her one of the most recognizable voices of Italian narrative theater.
From 2003, with Traviata, l'intelligenza del cuore, directed by Gabriele Vacis, began a collaboration spanning decades: Alice, una meraviglia di paese, Amleto, Intelletto d'amore co-written with Vacis, up to Otello, di precise parole si vive in 2024.
In recent years she has often worked with Serena Sinigaglia: Se non posso ballare... non è la mia rivoluzione, written with Serena Dandini and Gabriele Scotti, Le nostre anime di notte, and Aristophanes' Lysistrata in 2026, adapted by Emanuele Aldrovandi and Sinigaglia. In 2020 she also performed Franca Valeri's La vedova Socrate.
On television she was part of La TV delle ragazze between 1988 and 1989, hosted the first season of Amici in 1992 and was a monologist on Zelig between 2010 and 2012. On film she acted in The Icicle Thief by Maurizio Nichetti, Visioni private by Francesco Calogero, La donna della mia vita by Luca Lucini and Manuale d'amore 3 by Giovanni Veronesi.
A longtime voice actress, she voiced the Befana in La freccia azzurra and characters in series such as Remington Steele and Lois and Clark. She has recorded audiobooks, including Edith Wharton's L'età dell'innocenza and Amélie Nothomb's Metafisica dei tubi.
She has published La daga nel loden, In tournée, La sindrome di Gertrude, Come una specie di sorriso, Che bello essere noi and Ciò che possiamo fare. She received the Ambrogino d'oro from the City of Milan and the Premio Repubblica partigiana dell'Ossola. Since 2021 she has run Teatro Carcano in Milan together with Serena Sinigaglia.
V, the name the author uses today and that the Cometa gives in the title, is the American playwright born in New York on May 25, 1953, and long known as Eve Ensler.
The Vagina Monologues, written in 1996, won an Obie Award in 1997 and has been translated into 35 languages. On Broadway it was performed by Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close, Melanie Griffith and Winona Ryder, and in London by Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett.
Besides being a playwright, the author is a poet, screenwriter and director. V-Day, born from her work, has raised tens of millions of dollars over the years and is present in dozens of countries.
The first staging took place in a tiny space, the basement of the Cornelia Street Café in New York. In 2001 parts of the text were performed at Madison Square Garden, with Whoopi Goldberg and Melissa Etheridge.
The most interesting curious fact concerns Rome. In Italy The Vagina Monologues didn't premiere in a Milan theater or at a provincial festival, but in a major hall in the capital: on March 5, 2001, at 21:00, Teatro Argentina hosted the first Italian edition of V-Day, in the presence of the author. The evening was directed by Emanuela Giordano and 22 performers took the stage, including Adriana Asti, Anna Bonaiuto, Marina Confalone, Claudia Gerini, Lucrezia Lante della Rovere, Giuliana Lojodice, Elisabetta Pozzi, Stefania Rocca, Lunetta Savino, Catherine Spaak and, indeed, Lella Costa. That evening gave rise to several companies that toured the show around Italy in the 2001-2002 season. 11 years later, on May 14, 2012, another Roman edition of V-Day was held at Teatro Quirino with 20 actresses and figures from civil society, and once again Lella Costa was among them, alongside Ambra Angiolini, Paola Minaccioni, Francesca Reggiani, Paola Turci and Lucia Poli. The evening at the Cometa therefore closes a circle: the text returns to Rome, a few minutes' walk from the Argentina, with the same performer who was there the first time, now as director. Then there's a detail of wording that many notice only on the poster: the author no longer signs as Eve Ensler but as V, and the theater respects the choice by writing the new name next to the one the public knew her by.
Teatro della Cometa is a small Italian-style theater at Via del Teatro di Marcello 4, a few steps from the Capitoline Hill, created by Countess Anna Laetitia Pecci Blunt, known as Mimì, and inaugurated on November 17, 1958.
Born in Rome in 1885, daughter of Count Camillo Pecci and grandniece of Pope Leo XIII, Mimì Pecci Blunt married Cecil Blumenthal in 1919 and in Paris, on Rue de Babylone, held one of the most frequented salons of the time, visited by Dalí, Valéry and Cocteau. In Rome from 1933 she organized the Concerti di Primavera with Petrassi, Rieti and Labroca, and in 1935 she opened, with Libero De Libero, the Galleria della Cometa, which also had a branch in New York. The gallery closed after the racial laws of 1938.
In 1937 the countess bought the small palazzo next to her home on Piazza d'Aracoeli. The facade was preserved, and the works, begun by the engineer Stefano Gentiloni Silverj, stopped with the war and resumed with the architect Tomaso Buzzi, hired in 1956. The result was a hall with orchestra, parterre and two galleries, and chandeliers shaped like stars and comets.
After the 1968 fire and the long Barattolo management from 1986 to 2020, the theater was restored to a design by Fabio Tudisco and Andrea Panzini: the brass doors, the chandeliers and the stage machinery by Buzzi and Virgilio Marchi were recovered, the revolving stage restored, and a foyer opened onto the garden of Palazzo Pecci Blunt. It reopened on May 25, 2025.
For a text made of single voices like The Vagina Monologues, the size of the Cometa is an advantage. The hall is intimate, the galleries are close to the stage, and the relationship between performer and audience stays direct even in the most intimate moments.
What few people say is that, with a rotating cast, two performances of the same show are never identical. Lella Costa is there every night, but the performers alongside her change, and with them the timbres, rhythms and pauses of the individual monologues. For those who already know the text, perhaps from seeing it in the early 2000s, it's worth asking the box office about the cast for the chosen date: in some cases it may be the deciding reason to prefer one evening over another. A second point concerns the time. The week at the Cometa is built on three different times, and Saturday at 19:00 is the performance that usually fills up first, because it lets you have dinner afterward without hurrying in the Ghetto or Campo de' Fiori area. The weekday evenings at 21:00, especially Tuesday and Wednesday, are often the quietest. Third: the title still puts some people off. If you're worried about explicit language, know that the text speaks openly about the body and sexuality, but does so with far more irony than you'd imagine, and the register of Lella Costa, an actress who grew up in cabaret and narrative theater, pushes in that direction. The audience usually laughs a lot before being moved. Finally, a practical detail: the theater is in a limited traffic zone on weekdays until 18:00, and on Saturday from 14:00 to 18:00. For the weekday evening performances the ZTL is not active, but for the Saturday one at 19:00 check the hours before driving in.
The advice is to choose the date according to how you want to spend the evening. For those who want to focus on the show, a weekday performance at 21:00 is the best choice: a more intimate hall, a less festive pace, coming out into an already quiet Rome, with the Capitoline lit up a few steps away. For those who want to combine theater and dinner, Saturday at 19:00 is the ideal time. For those coming from out of town, Sunday at 17:00 leaves time to get home the same day. Second tip: arrive at least 20 minutes early. The Cometa, reopened in 2025, deserves a look: the foyer overlooking the garden of Palazzo Pecci Blunt, the star-shaped chandeliers, the brass doors recovered in the restoration. They are details you can appreciate only before the start, when the lights are on. Third: if you don't know the text, read up on the history of V-Day first, to understand why this show, born as a series of confessions, has become a collective ritual all over the world. Fourth: in our view it's best to go as a couple or in a small group, because it's a show people talk about for a long time afterward, at dinner or on the way home, and the discussion is part of the experience. Finally, for those who have seen Lella Costa in other works, from Traviata to Otello, this is the chance to see her in a different role, both performer and director of a company.
Teatro della Cometa can be reached by bus on lines 30, 4, 118, 160 and 170, Via del Teatro di Marcello stop, or with Metro B to Colosseo and then about a five-minute walk toward Piazza Venezia, according to the theater's directions.
Via del Teatro di Marcello stop is served by several lines and drops you practically in front of the entrance. For the evening performances, check the times for getting home on ATAC's route planner, because some lines run less often after 23:00.
The Colosseo stop on Line B is the one listed by the theater. From the station you walk along Via dei Fori Imperiali toward Piazza Venezia: a short walk, with the Forum on your left and the Vittoriano ahead.
The theater is inside the Centro Storico ZTL, active Monday to Friday from 6:30 to 18:00 and Saturday from 14:00 to 18:00, with free access on holidays. The Cometa has no reserved parking: the website points to paid parking toward Piazza Venezia or Via Petroselli.
From the historic center the Cometa is easy to reach on foot too: from Piazza Venezia it's a few minutes, from the Ghetto and Largo Argentina about a quarter of an hour. It's the simplest way for those staying in the area.
Many know that Teatro della Cometa is linked to the Pecci Blunt family, but less well known is that the hall stayed silent for 17 years. On October 18, 1968, a short circuit caused a fire, and the theater closed. It reopened only in 1986, thanks to the founder's daughter, Viviana, and the engineer Giorgio Barattolo, with a reconstruction by the architect Alberto Filippi. The Barattolo management lasted more than 30 years, until 2020. Then a new restoration began, entrusted to Fabio Tudisco and Andrea Panzini, which recovered the brass doors, the chandeliers and the stage machinery designed by Tomaso Buzzi and Virgilio Marchi, got the revolving stage working again and opened the foyer onto the garden of Palazzo Pecci Blunt. The reopening, on May 25, 2025, brought with it a new visual identity by Studio Sonnoli and a documentation center on the theater's historical archive. A second seldom mentioned fact concerns the hall's vocation. From the 1960s, with Diego Fabbri, the Cometa hosted Beckett, Ionesco, Stravinsky and productions directed by Giorgio Strehler: a small theater, but open to the most advanced repertoire of its time. A text like The Vagina Monologues, which broke more than one taboo in the 1990s, fits well into that tradition of a hall aristocratic by origin and experimental by choice.
No photos during the show: in an intimate hall the glow of a screen can be seen from the stage and disturbs performers engaged in often intimate monologues. The right photo is taken before or after, and there are three options. The first is the hall itself, before the lights go down, if the staff allow it: the chandeliers shaped like stars and comets designed by Tomaso Buzzi are the image that best tells the story of the theater, and with the hall lit the two galleries read well. Shoot from the orchestra upward, without flash. The second is the facade on Via del Teatro di Marcello, in the evening, with the show poster: the facade of the small palazzo is the original one, preserved in the conversion into a theater, and capturing it in the light of the streetlamps conveys the character of a hall hidden inside an old building. The third is a few steps away, as you leave: the Theater of Marcellus lit up at night, with its ancient arches and the houses built on top over the centuries, is one of the most powerful images of central Rome. In early November darkness comes early and by about 18:00 the light is already nighttime, so for those going to the Sunday performance at 17:00, the photo should be taken on the way out.
Teatro della Cometa stands between the Capitoline Hill, the Theater of Marcellus and the Ghetto, in one of the areas of the city densest with monuments, ideal for a walk before the show.
The Capitoline Hill is a few minutes away: the square, the Capitoline Museums and the stairway of Santa Maria in Aracoeli are within walking distance. From Piazza d'Aracoeli you can also see the palazzo where Mimì Pecci Blunt lived.
The Theater of Marcellus is the ancient building that gives the street its name. Beyond it, the Portico of Octavia leads into the Jewish Ghetto, with its restaurants and quiet streets.
Heading toward the Tiber you reach Tiber Island in a few minutes and, to the south, the Mouth of Truth. To the north, Piazza Venezia is the landmark for getting your bearings.
The story of the Cometa begins before the theater. In 1933 Mimì Pecci Blunt launched the Concerti di Primavera in Rome, with musicians such as Goffredo Petrassi, Vittorio Rieti and Mario Labroca. In 1935, with the poet Libero De Libero, she opened the Galleria della Cometa, which exhibited among others the drawings of Corrado Cagli and in 1937 opened a branch in New York, and in 1938, with the racial laws, the gallery closed. In that same year, 1937, the countess bought the small palazzo next to her home on Piazza d'Aracoeli to turn it into a theater. The war stopped the works, and the architect Tomaso Buzzi, hired in 1956, resumed them. On November 17, 1958, the Cometa was inaugurated with Alfred de Musset's Les Caprices de Marianne, with artistic direction by Linda Chittaro, and from November 1959 direction passed to Remigio Paone, the impresario of Teatro Nuovo in Milan. In the 1960s, with Diego Fabbri, came Beckett, Ionesco, Stravinsky and productions directed by Giorgio Strehler. On October 18, 1968, a fire caused by a short circuit closed the hall for about 17 years. In 1986 came the reopening, with the daughter Viviana and the engineer Giorgio Barattolo and the reconstruction by Alberto Filippi. From 2020 a new restoration, and on May 25, 2025, the reopening with the season that now hosts Lella Costa. The November 2026 dates fall a few days before the 68th anniversary of the inauguration.
Some of the most important names of 20th-century European culture have passed through the Cometa and its founder's circle. In Mimì Pecci Blunt's Paris salon, on Rue de Babylone, Salvador Dalí, Paul Valéry and Jean Cocteau met, and in 1930 the countess gave the famous Bal Blanc in Paris. In Rome, the Concerti di Primavera played the music of Goffredo Petrassi, Vittorio Rieti and Mario Labroca, and Corrado Cagli exhibited at the Galleria della Cometa, with the complicity of the poet Libero De Libero. On the theater's stage, in the 1960s, came the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco, the music of Igor Stravinsky and productions directed by Giorgio Strehler, under the direction of Diego Fabbri and, before him, Remigio Paone. The text staged these days has its own illustrious list of performers: on Broadway Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close, Melanie Griffith, Winona Ryder, in London Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett, in Rome, in 2001 at the Argentina, Adriana Asti, Anna Bonaiuto, Claudia Gerini, Catherine Spaak, and in 2012 at the Quirino Ambra Angiolini, Paola Minaccioni, Paola Turci. At both Roman evenings there was Lella Costa, who from November 3 to 8 brings the text to the Cometa with a rotating company. The theater's season continues with the pianist Giorgi Gigashvili, with Rosa Feola and Vincenzo Rana, and with Sharon Eyal's dance.
The theater doesn't give the running time of the show, and with a 21:00 start on weekdays it's still best to plan dinner beforehand, or an aperitivo before and a quick bite after.
The four weekday performances are the quietest. The area around the theater is calm after 23:00: walking back toward Piazza Venezia or the Ghetto is pleasant, with the monuments lit up.
The Saturday time lets you come out just in time for dinner. On Saturday night the Ghetto and Campo de' Fiori are very busy, so booking a table in advance is wise.
The Sunday afternoon performance lends itself to a full day: the Capitoline Museums in the morning, lunch in the Ghetto, theater at 17:00 and home in the evening.
Around Teatro della Cometa the area with the most restaurants is the Ghetto, a few minutes' walk away, with its Roman and Roman Jewish cuisine.
Along Via del Portico d'Ottavia there's a concentration of trattorias and restaurants serving Roman Jewish cuisine. It's the closest and most characteristic option, suitable both for dinner before 21:00 and for one after the Saturday performance.
A quarter-hour walk takes you to the Campo de' Fiori area, where there's a very wide choice, from pizza by the slice to osterias, and places stay open late.
Teatro della Cometa is a historic hall with orchestra, parterre and two galleries: if you have reduced mobility, contact the theater before buying to agree on the most suitable seat.
The Vagina Monologues talks openly about sexuality and violence. It's a show for an adult audience, older teenagers can follow it, but whoever brings them should know the content of the text beforehand.
In early November evenings in Rome are cool and rain is frequent. A folding umbrella and shoes suited to cobblestones are the most practical advice for the walk from the stop to the theater.
After the November performances, the Cometa's program continues with music and dance, according to the calendar published by the theater.
On April 10, 2027, at 21:00 and April 11 at 17:00 comes Delay the Sadness, a new creation by Sharon Eyal for the S-E-D Dance Company, founded in France by the choreographer with Gai Behar. On April 18 at 17:00 the Georgian pianist Giorgi Gigashvili plays.
On May 16, 2027, at 17:00 Rosa Feola and Vincenzo Rana present a program for voice and piano from Mozart to Puccini, across more than a century of Italian and European music theater.
The Vagina Monologues with Lella Costa is on stage at Teatro della Cometa from November 3 to 8, 2026. From Tuesday 3 to Friday November 6 the curtain rises at 21:00, on Saturday, November 7, at 19:00 and on Sunday, November 8, at 17:00, according to the calendar published by the theater.
Teatro della Cometa is at Via del Teatro di Marcello 4, a few steps from Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. Bus lines 30, 4, 118, 160 and 170 stop on Via del Teatro di Marcello, and from the Colosseo stop on Metro B it's about a five-minute walk.
Lella Costa takes part in every performance of The Vagina Monologues at the Cometa, which she also directs and coordinates artistically. Alongside her is a cast of performers who rotate across the evenings, and the names for each date can be requested from the theater's box office.
Tickets for The Vagina Monologues are sold through Teatro della Cometa's online box office, linked from the official show page, where prices for each section of the hall are also published.
The Vagina Monologues was written in 1996 by the American playwright V, formerly Eve Ensler, after interviews with more than 200 women. The text won an Obie Award in 1997 and has been translated into 35 languages.
The Vagina Monologues at the Cometa is a show for adults, because it deals openly with sexuality, the body and violence, though with plenty of irony. Older teenagers can attend, but it's advisable that whoever brings them knows the text beforehand.
No, Teatro della Cometa on Via del Teatro di Marcello is a different hall from Teatro Cometa Off in Testaccio. The Vagina Monologues with Lella Costa is staged in the historic hall near the Capitoline Hill, created by Mimì Pecci Blunt.
The advice is to book a weekday performance early to enjoy the show in an intimate hall, or Saturday at 19:00 to combine theater and dinner in the Ghetto, to arrive early to see the comet-shaped chandeliers and the foyer on the garden, and to ask the box office which performers will join Lella Costa on the chosen evening. In our view it's the right opportunity to see a text whose Italian story began right in Rome, brought back to the city by someone who was there from the first night, in one of the most beautiful and least known theaters of the historic center.
Article written by the editorial team of Tour Leader Pro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.
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