The 13th edition of the Napoli Teatro Festival, the fourth directed by Ruggero Cappuccio, took place from 1 to 31 July in 19 open-air venues in the Campania Region, presenting around 130 events scheduled during the month, including 28 world premieres, in the 9 multidisciplinary sections. The claim of this edition, realised despite the health emergency, was “Theatre is reborn with you”: an invitation extended to the audience to return to relive the emotions of live performances in heritage venues after the months of lockdown. 

All the open-air spaces were managed in complete safety thanks to the spacing between seats in the stalls, temperature measurement, use of sanitising gel and constant sanitisation of the spaces. To reach a wider audience, as the seating capacity for each performance was reduced, 13 events were streamed free of charge on the Campania Region’s Digital Ecosystem for Culture platform. 

For the fourth consecutive year, in collaboration with the Campania Regional Museums Directorate, the Royal Palace of Naples was the main venue of the Festival. With the aim of enhancing Campania’s architectural and landscape heritage, the 13th edition of the Festival also made use of various areas of the Real Bosco di Capodimonte.  

Other places involved in Naples include Palazzo Fondi, the courtyards of the buildings in the Sanità district, the De Gasperi district, the Rotonda Diaz, and the San Carlo Theatre. For the region, instead, the Cathedral and the courtyard of the Ghirelli theatre in Salerno, the monumental complex of Santa Chiara in Solofra, the Natural Theatre of Pietrelcina, and the Amphitheatre of Santa Maria Capua Vetere. 

Italian, Observatory, Dance, SportOpera, Music, Literature, Cinema, Exhibitions, Special Projects: the Sections highlighted a special focus on multidisciplinarity with a wide-ranging proposal aimed at highlighting the new creations of theatrical realities on the national scene and at the same time supporting the work of companies from Campania. 

A total of 577 artists and over 1,500 performing arts workers are involved, with the aim of supporting the recovery of a sector sorely tried by the pandemic. The collaboration with the Teatro Stabile di Napoli – Teatro Nazionale was realised through the co-production of two shows included in the Special Projects section of the Festival with Mimmo Borrelli, Renato Carpentieri and Claudio Di Palma. In the 2020 edition, the International Section was postponed to the autumn and presented the national debuts of directors Dimitris Papaioannou, Jan Fabre and Ramzi Choukair.  

More than 10,000 spectators took part in the events and around 40,000 streams were recorded for Roberto De Simone’s Concerto tra scrittura e riscrittura. 

Media coverage of the Festival was also significant in this edition, with 425 journalists attending the events, 200 accredited newspapers and 400 reports aired on radio and television channels. 

The Napoli Teatro Festival Italia is part of the Italia Festival network and the EFA (European Festivals Association) and benefits from the synergy relations created between the Fondazione Campania dei Festival and the cultural institutes in the area (Institut Français, Goethe-Institut, Istituto Cervantes, British Council). 

The Festival has proposed a prudent pricing policy, with tickets from 8 to 5 euros and absolute discounts for the weaker social groups. The proceeds from the performances included in the Music section were also donated to the ‘Pascale Foundation’ National Cancer Institute in Naples.