Festival's history

1971 / 1977 The brand of political theatre	1978 / 1983 Three directors and a Third Theatre	1984 / 1988 The theatre citadel
1989 / 1993 Independent theatre	1994 / 1997 Among men	1998 / 2001 Horizon and memory

Born in 1971 with a strong political impulse, Santarcangelo Festival was called “International Square Theatre Festival”.
Under the art direction of the roman Piero Patino, it wanted to weave political requests linked to the movements of 1968 and the folklore inborn in the cultural tradition of the land where it was born: that part of Romagna which is nourishment to famous poetic visionaries.
The small town of Santarcangelo, retired on a low hill few kilometres from the Adriatic coast and then called “the theatre’s citadel ” by Roberto Bacci, has become the stage for a never-ending laboratory of languages and ideas; a mall town which, not being provided with a theatre, has become a theatre itself, with its squares, quarters and the old ball court as locations for performances which marked the history of contemporary theatre.

Cristina Ventrucci