The festival takes place in the north of Italy: A beautiful and intimate setting in the Brianza forest not far from Bergamo and Milan with ten days of theatre, dance and live performance in outdoor spaces.

I met Michele at an IETM mentoring session in Dublin in Spring, told him about my festival plans and volunteered to work for the Esperidi festival to see how his came together in a village called Campsirago, that attracts theatre lovers from the four corners of the earth to perform in Scarlattine Teatro’s residential space, with it’s beautiful Corte Piccolo, reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Globe as well as it’s larger Palazzo Gambazzi stage: High in the mountainous forest removed from urban sounds all one hears are the echoes of actors and music reverberating in the wooded mountains that surround Campsirago with a backdrop of distant city lights below..

I spent over two weeks there working as a techie with a multi-talented stage crew who reminded me of the mechanics in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performers in their own right and without whom it’d be a poor show. In broken Italian I conversed and had the craic with these “hempen homespuns” from all over Italy and from as far as Sicily.

I met some wonderful people and made some friends with whom I’m looking forward to working and playing again. It is my hope and desire that Michele will agree to bring his In-Boscati promenade piece about Theseus and the Minotaur to McMahon Park as a prelude to A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be performed by our own “hempen homespuns” in conjunction with Scarlattine Teatro.

One has to create one’s own luck but I also believe in serendipity: working with David Rane, co-artistic director of  Guth Gafa’s International Documentary Festival with his partner Neasa in Malin Village, Donegal, then with Michele and Anna of Scarlattine and last but not least with Belinda Wild at the DLI Summer school, whose home base is a spacious and specially designed theatre studio in the centre of Bandon, West Cork, Ireland. Belinda and Ian Wild are co-artistic directors of Green Room International,  practicing theatre professionals who have been training actors for over 20 years both in Ireland and the UK. Green Room is also committed to bringing its workshops to international venues and to creating links with Theatre practitioners worldwide.

This summer has given me an opportunity to bring together people who share a similar ethos celebrated in the work we do by bringing Theatre and Documentary to remote regions in our respective communities. Our dream is to bring us all together next summer for our Non-Prophet Festival. We’re only stepping into Theseus’ labyrinth but come next summer we’ll have found our way out again to bring back to our communities the elixir of life learned from our journey through Greek mythology, modern Ireland and Italy to bring you a feast of festivals celebrating creativity.