De Giorgio Domenico was born in Grottaglie on 27th January 1824 to Vito Vincenzo and Maria Farina. He died in Grottaglie on 28th May 1891. He was a priest, musician, maestro and administrator, inasmuch as he was secretary to the first council led by the mayor Alfonso Pignatelli. He composed many popular songs, but his masterpiece is “La Passione e Morte di Nostro Signore Gesú Cristo” (the passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ), an operatic tragedy in five acts. It was probably written between 1845 - 48, given that the archpriest Vincenzo Maranò, who wrote the whole recitative, died in 1848. The acts are divided and named as follows: Act I- the Supper; Act II- the Sanhedrin; Act III- the Garden; Act IV-the Condemnation and journey to Calvary; Act V- Death
The origins of "Piccolo Teatro Di Grottaglie" (Small Theatre of Grottaglie) date back to the second half of the 1960s, when in the Grottaglie parish of the Annunziata, a group of young people formed the "Compagnia dei Simpatici" company. In 1972, the group transferred to the reading centre of the Sant'Elia elementary school. Amongst the activities organised by the centre, drama took on a leading role and the "Piccolo Teatro di Grottaglie" was born; this consolidated and adopted a series of rules whose main points are love for Grottaglie and the theatre, and the rediscovery of local traditions and local history, but the the group's most important goal is friendship and the cultural and humanist development of its members. Conscious of the importance of knowing their own origins, and aware that a dialect is a language, the company decided to widen its cultural horizons, and add a measure of culture to what was already there, giving rise to work that has increased the group's cultural profile and increased the weight of the town's cultural traditions. The association, a member of the FITP (the Italian federation of folk traditions), also collaborates with other groups in the territory. Activities also include charity performances in aid of registered charities and citizens in need.
