Challenged by Teatro Municipal de Lisboa, independent theatre companies from Porto were invited to organize that institution's programming throughout a month. "The public goes to the theatre" was the ironic response of a young company from Porto to the challenge. This project aimed to promote a performance, a folk parody excursion that would lead the provincial public of Porto to the capital, a journey preceded by several workshops to help them familiarize with theatrical language codes. Via research-action-oriented ethnographic methods, the sociological research intended to analyze and mediate the recruited individual's relationship with culture and theater institutions. Thus the research strategy was based on the articulation of participant observation with visual procedures, individual and collective interviews. This article draws a preliminary assessment of the project, a diagnosis based on the population’s representations and theater relation approach.