Open Call
Racconti per Ricominciare

Sunset Tales Theatre Festival
Ed. 2024

Festival presentation

Created and realized by Vesuvioteatro, “Racconti per Ricominciare – Sunset Tales Theatre Festival” is a multi-venue eco- friendly performing arts festival that takes place in National Cultural Heritage in Campania, South of Italy. During the Festival, some of the most evocative locations in Campania are transformed into natural theaters for site-specific performances staged at sunset, in perfect symbiosis both with ancient architectures and natural landscapes. Conceived during the Italian lockdown in 2020, it helped many sites of National Cultural Heritage to reopen their doors to a new audience. It is recognized as National Theatre Festival by Italian Ministry of Culture.

The Festival gives life to a dozen of theatrical site-specific performances, staged in open-air areas (botanical gardens, italian gardens, terraces, meadows, woods, cloisters…) in many different national cultural heritage sites in Campania, especially between Vesuvius and Mediterranean Sea, an area which was the summer residence of the Bourbon Kings of Naples, from 1734 to 1861. Each performance is realized at sunset and is mainly made of 4 different monologues or performances of 15′, played by 4 different performers, in 4 different areas outdoors of the venue. In this way, the spectators have possibility of exploring the cultural site throughout an artistic experience.

RACCONTI PER RICOMINCIARE is a green festival: it is mainly realized without electronic equipment and/or artificial lights and without scenography or set designs: each performance is immersed in the natural light of the sunset and in the sound of the environment. We conceive the entire project as physically modulated on each particular heritage site, and each site dictates the terms of every single performance creation: this greatly stimulates new ideas for the creating process. We work with local artists who do not need to travel by train or by plane to join the Festival.

Call Details

For the next edition of the festival, the Artistic Direction is glad to select 4 original writings, proposed in the form of a short story, written by foreign authors, resident anywhere. Authors must be at least 18 years old at the time of submitting their text; there is no other age limit for participation.

The selection will be based on the irrevocable decision of the evaluation commitee; texts will be translated into Italian (where necessary) and adapted for a site-specific performance by Italian theatre directors for the 2024 edition of the Festival.

The evaluation commitee will comprise professional artists and members of festival management: Dora De Martino, President of Vesuvioteatro and organizational director of the Festival; Giulio Baffi, journalist and theater critic as well as artistic consultant of the Festival; Claudio Di Palma, director, actor, author and artistic director of the Festival.

The evaluation commitee can involve members of the pertinent Italian based Cultural Institutes for foreign cultures in order to ask for possible advise.

Participation is free, there are no registration fees.

Application rules and attachements:

Your text:
→ must be sent no later than December 24th 2023, to the following address: callracconti@vesuvioteatro.org; Object OPEN CALL | RACCONTI PER RICOMINCIARE 2024.
→ must be written in the form of a short monologue, from 9000 to 12000 characters including spaces (1500 – 2000 words)
→ must be original and never staged; adaptions of existent works will not be taken into consideration.
→ must be received exclusively in French, English or Italian (if your text is originally written in
another language, you can translate it in one of the languages admitted)
→ must not include the name of the author. Jointly, but separately, it must be attached:

  • Summary of the artwork (200 words max)
  • Info and e Bio of the Author
  • Signed self-declaration certifying the originality of the work and ownership of the rights
    author’s
  • Digital version of a valid Identification Document

For any questions, please contact us at: callracconti@vesuvioteatro.org