Sentieri in Cammino - Castello Orsini Stage

A festival that travels from village to village

Sentieri in Cammino is not a festival concentrated in a single location: it is an itinerant series of theatre, music, and performance trails that crosses the Alta Sabina, in the province of Rieti, in Lazio. The artistic direction is entrusted to actor Massimo Wertmuller, with organization by Paolo Di Reda; the project is supported by the Lazio Region and the Fondazione Varrone, in collaboration with several Sabine municipalities, with Poggio Moiano as the lead, alongside Casaprota, Monteleone Sabino, Montenero Sabino, and Scandriglia.

The Montenero Sabino stage

The Municipality of Montenero Sabino is one of the most recognizable stops on the itinerary. Here, performances are held at Castello Orsini, the fortress that dominates the village and serves as its most important monument: owned by the municipality since 1982, it has hosted events, exhibitions, and festivals for years. The audience sits outdoors, beneath the walls, surrounded by the Sabine countryside: it is one of the most appreciated formats of the festival, as it combines the quality of the theatrical offering with a historical setting that is worth the trip in itself.

What to expect on stage

The programming blends genres and formats, always maintaining a standard of civic and popular theatre in the best sense of the term:

• prose and actor monologues, often entrusted to well-known performers from Italian theatre and television;
• storytelling theatre and performances focused on words, memory, and irony;
• concerts and live music, from singer-songwriter tracks to acoustic ensembles;
• evenings bridging storytelling and song, with musicians accompanying the actor on stage.

In past seasons, Montenero Sabino has hosted both the opening and closing of the summer leg: in August 2022, the Castle kicked off the week of performances in Alta Sabina, while in August 2025, the open-air season concluded there with Caro Carosello by and with Clara Costanzo, a tribute to seventy years of Italian television, featuring live music by Andrea Vulpani.

A year-round season

Sentieri in Cammino does not end in the summer. The calendar begins in the spring in the indoor theatres of the participating municipalities—particularly the Teatro S. Antonio in Scandriglia—continues with the open-air season during the warmer months, when courtyards, squares, and castles become stages, and resumes in the autumn until mid-October. The Montenero Sabino stage belongs to the summer block, traditionally held in August, starting in the late evening.

Why it's worth visiting Montenero

Montenero Sabino is a village of a few hundred inhabitants perched among the hills of Sabina, the land of extra virgin olive oil and stone villages north of Rome. Visiting for a performance means discovering a piece of inland Lazio that mass tourism ignores: narrow alleys, views over the Turano and Farfa valleys, and local taverns. The festival was born with exactly this intent—to bring high-quality live performance to small towns and, at the same time, to showcase these places. Tickets remain intentionally affordable (around 10 euros in recent years), and booking is recommended as outdoor seating is limited.