The company’s debut came in May 1979 with LA NOTTE DELLE DANZE [The night of dances] In 1981, at the Santarcangelo Festival, American critic Bonnie Marranca, editor-in-chief of the monthly review "Performing Arts" (winner in 1986 of the Rockfeller Foundation Prize), was so enthusiastic about the production that she wrote: "One of the most striking moments of the festival was the performance of Sardinian company Akròama. It was late at night when, from a sloping ground once a Capuchin monastery, I saw LA NOTTE DELLE DANZE, staged by a man and two women in an open ground surrounded by the public. The violent feelings, the open sensuality, the movements and the popular music so deeply rooted in the Sardinian culture, left me dumbfounded for their purity. Theirs is an authentic popular theatre that makes Peter Brook’s anthropological experiments look futile and shabby in comparison."

In 1981 Akròama presented its second production, MARIEDDA, with a premiere at the Santarcangelo Festival. This is what Roberto De Monticelli, theatre critic of "Il Corriere della Sera", wrote about it: "Is it an heresy if I say that what moved me most was the small production of Teatro Laboratorio Akròama from Cagliari, a Sardinian version of Andersen’s Little Match-Seller, a description of a mysterious peasant society with its taboos and its hypocrisies, where folklore and feeling intermingle around Mariedda and her melodious call "Allumafoculu"? Well, if it is an heresy, I profess it with great pleasure, also because for the first time in my life I saw a match lit in the shade not for formal but for thematic reasons."

Later on MARIEDDA was officially invited to the Edinburgh Festival in 1982, and then in Vienna, London and many other Italian and European cities, totalling more that 600 performances.

Shortly after the Santarcangelo Festival, Lelio Lecis attended Eugenio Barba’s ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology) in Volterra and at the end of the course he staged HAMLET, a study in six languages with actors from as many countries.

Akròama’s third production, L’ULTIMO SOGNO DI BALLOI CARIA [Balloi Caria’s last dream], was invited to the Spoleto Festival in 1983; later on it was performed in several Italian cities and also landed in Czechoslovakia. This play was the last part of a trilogy on popular drama, where traditional Sardinian culture confronted contemporary society.

A later adaptation of L’ULTIMO SOGNO DI BALLOI CARIA was invited to Potsdam in 1995, where Lelio Lecis won the 1^st prize for contemporary dramaturgy with the following motivation: "The elements that over the ages have always represented the foundation of theatre are here renovated and revitalized. By melting archaic myths, costumes, songs, sounds and gestures with an extremely effective poetic atmosphere, Lecis creates an almost slow-motion theatre that perfectly opposes to the fatal frenzy of our times."

After a number of studies resulting in dramatic pieces very different from each other, from classics like Cechov, Shakespeare and Petrolini to a dramatisation of Nabokov’s Lolita, Lelio Lecis staged LA STANZA [The room], inspired to Musil’s juvenile writings. With this production, Akròama was invited to the International Theatre Festival in Florence in 1986 (year in which Florence was European Capital of Culture) and afterwards toured in Poland (Krakow, Warsaw, Lublin, Potsdam, etc.)

In 1987 the Akròama company was recognized by the Ministry for Culture and Art as one of the 12 "Centres for Dramatic Research" in the whole of Italy. From that moment Akròama, in addition to its productive activity, started to promote dramatic culture through conferences, seminars, a drama school, a well stocked library, and a rich season of guest companies. During the following two years, the Centre also renovated two theatres still in activity (TEATRO DELLE SALINE and TEATRO DI MONSERRATO), thus becoming a benchmark for both local dramatic companies and Sardinian public.

In1988 ROMEO E GIULIETTA [Romeo and Juliet], staged in two languages by Italian and Polish actors, was presented at the Krakow Festival. In 1988-89 Lelio Lecis worked on LA CASA DELLA MADRE [The house of the mother] (Santarcangelo Festival 1989), an extraordinary project where the public was guided by angels in eight different rooms. The play had excellent reception and made more than 100 performances. 1991 was the year of Euripides’ TROIANE [The Trojan women], that took part in the Salzburg Theatre Festival and was later performed with success in several Italian cities. In 1992 Lelio Lecis was back at the Salzburg Theatre Festival with LO STRANIERO [The stranger], an adaptation of Camus’ novel, saluted enthusiastically by the Austrian press.

In 1995 Akròama staged IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI [The Desert of the Tartars], a Guido Davico Bonino’s adaptation of Dino Buzzati’s novel, that enthralled both public and critics. In 1996 Lelio Lecis was invited by the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam to stage Pirandello’s SEI PERSONAGGI IN CERCA D'AUTORE [Six characters in search of an author], favourably received by both public and critics, who defined it "a masterpiece" and "a masterly performance". In 1988 Lelio Lecis worked on the project O CICLOPE [The Cyclops], staged in Corsica in four languages (Sardinian, Corsican, Italian and French) and financed by the European Commission. From 1996 to 1998, Akròama worked on a dramatic research project with actors and musicians from the Beijing Opera, a unique experience in Western theatre that resulted in SGUARDO OCCIDENTALE [Western glance], later to become the only Italian production invited to the Grotowski Centre in Wroclaw.

Over the years the Akròama Centre established a course in direction and dramaturgy, a course for theatre operators financed by the Ministry for University and Research, and a Civic School of Theatre Arts.

Besides Lelio Lecis’ plays (among the latest ones STANZA CON GIARDINO [A room with a garden], BROKEN JULIET and MEDEA), Akròama also produced pieces staged by other directors, among which WOYZECK and AMLETO by Jochen Scholch, MARTAH by Pierfranco Zappareddu, IL SOLDATINO DI PIOMBO [The tin soldier] by Rosalba Piras, MARINES by Elisabetta Podda, COCCA DI MAMMA [Mummy’s girl] and DELIRIO A DUE [Four-handed delirium] by Dafne Turillazzi, RACCONTI SARDI [Sardinian tales] by Stefanie Tost, ULTIMA DI CAMPIONATO [The last game in the League] by Giuseppe Pili, DONNE DI MARE [Sea women] by Alice Capitanio. It also hosted guest companies such as Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret, Andrej Wajda’s Stary Teatr from Krakow, Laurie Anderson, the Berliner Ensemble, the Living Theatre, and the Squat Teatr.

In conclusion, the Akròama activity ranges from the research for new dramatic languages to the promulgation of dramatic arts though stages and seminars; it develops locally based projects, with particular attention to destitute areas; its hosts artists without the possibility to express themselves with adequate means. All these activities are made possible by a professional structure that allows the Centre to produce, organize or promote several hundreds of performances every year.