Inventicano — Theatre Contest

A festival written in a single day

Inventicano is a theatre contest that flips the traditional way of preparing a show on its head. Here, you don't perform a piece rehearsed for months: the short plays in competition are conceived, written, and staged within the span of the same day as the event. It is a rare format in the Campania region, focusing on extemporaneous writing, improvisation skills, and the speed of staging.

The mechanics are simple and ruthless: in the morning, the registered companies meet at the Venticano theatre, receive the theme, keyword, or mandatory narrative constraint, and from that moment, the countdown begins. They have only a few hours to brainstorm, write, rehearse, and find a complete scenic form. In the evening, in front of the audience and a jury, everything is decided in just a few minutes on stage.

Where and when: the Cavea Teatrale of Venticano

The festival is held in the arena of the Teatro Comunale in Venticano, known as the Cavea Teatrale, an open-air space that the Municipality has used for years for its summer programming — from prose to opera. The first edition took place on Sunday, July 5, 2026, at 9:00 PM, as part of the «ViviAMO Venticano — Summer Events 2026» calendar, which features shows, historical re-enactments, gastronomic events, and family activities from July to September across Piazza Monumento ai Caduti, Piazza Santa Maria, Piazza Pio, and the arena itself.

The theme of the first edition

Companies in the first edition were given a deliberately uncomfortable title: «The law is NOT the same for everyone». A civic theme that groups addressed with very different registers, from irony to metaphor, from the grotesque to everyday storytelling. The fact that everyone works on the same constraint, in the same number of hours, makes the evening comparison particularly interesting: you immediately see how the same idea can take opposite paths.

The jury and criteria

A jury composed of journalists, cultural operators, and artistic directors is called to evaluate the short plays. The first edition included Barbara Ciarcia (journalist), Mimma Di Sorbo (school principal), Umberto Rinaldi (artistic director of the Corto e a Capo Film Festival), Peppe Fonzo (artistic director of the Teatro Magnifico Visbaal in Benevento), and Giusy Iachetta, councilor of the Municipality of Venticano.

The judging criteria declared by the organizers are five:

• Directing and the overall cohesion of the staging;
• Quality of the text written during the day;
• Acting performance;
• Adherence to the assigned theme;
• Development potential of the short play into a full-length show.

The prize: from short play to full show

The main recognition is the plaque for the «Best Short Play», but the real prize is something else: the winning company has the opportunity to develop their work into an extended version and present it in the following year's Summer Venticanese calendar. A mechanism that transforms the contest into a small, delayed-action creative residency, providing continuity to what was born in just one night.

Who is behind it

Inventicano is conceived and hosted by actor Angelo Sateriale, the festival's artistic director, and is organized by the Cicolocchio ETS Cultural Association — with vice-president Luana Abbondandolo among the promoters — together with the municipal administration led by Mayor Arturo Caprio. The stated goal is to provide space for new theatrical languages and emerging local companies in an area where opportunities for comparison are not so frequent.

Venticano and Irpinia

Venticano is a small town in the province of Avellino, in Campania, along the Calore valley, in the heart of Irpinia. It is known primarily for its historic Sample Fair and the Ham, Wine, and Lamb Festival, but for years the theatre arena has also made it a reference point for the area's summer cultural programming. Those arriving for Inventicano will find a typically Irpinian context: hills, wineries, local cuisine, and a town that lives outdoors until late at night in the summer.

Why it's worth it

Attending Inventicano means seeing theatre in its most fragile and alive state: freshly born texts, actors memorizing lines written just hours earlier, and scenic solutions improvised with whatever is available. It is an unpredictable evening, often funny, at times surprisingly profound — and above all unrepeatable, because those short plays, as they were performed, will never exist in the same form again.