A message from the Mayor of Acco

Honored artists, actors, theatre aficionados, guests, and Acco residents,

The Acco Festival is now celebrating its 28th year.
This is my fourth year as mayor of the city of Acco, and it’s my pride and pleasure to be taking part in this festival that grows in power and richness from year to year.
The Acco Festival is a leading, significant event in Israeli culture. The Festival invites us to an encounter with high-quality, original theatre in a lively, vivid atmosphere, set against the background of the enchanted scenery of historic, engaging Acco.
The audience, faithfully attending the Festival and filling its performance halls and the city’s streets, attests to a hunger for the out-of-the-ordinary doings of alternative theatre. This is an audience that desires to experience, each time anew, the fresh spontaneity of live theatre, up close and intimate.
In recent years, we have been engaging full-swing in a process of change and improvement that can be felt in every corner of the city. Festival guests can now enjoy a new boutique hotel, upgraded restaurants, and better-maintained, cleaner streets.
It’s my pleasure to offer these greetings to the dozens of artists, playwrights, directors, and actors taking part in the Festival, and to wish you, the audience of spectators, and the residents of Acco, an exciting and enjoyable experience of alternative theatre.
Yours truly,
                                                                                        
                                                                                                     Shimon Lankry
                                                                                                            Mayor

Greetings from the Minister of Science, Culture, and Sport

For the 28th consecutive year, the city of Acco presents the Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, the festival that has transformed Acco from a city known for its archaeology and tourism to one of lively artistic creation, welcoming the future. Acco, a city encompassing a blessed coexistence that embraces an ethnic, religious, and multicultural spectrum, has integrated its beautiful landscapes, ancient halls, and great spaces to create the Acco Festival of Alternative Theatre, that has made its mark on theatre arts in the State of Israel for the past 27 years. The Festival has revealed to us new artists, directors, and actors who have moved from the periphery to center stage, and from the fringe to the mainstream.
I note with satisfaction how the Festival has contributed over the years to the awareness of theatrical and artistic accomplishment among the city’s youth, and particularly in the Theatre Arts major in Acco’s ORT High School, the flourishing and international success of the Acco Theatre Center, and in recent years, the success and accomplishments of the Masrachid Festival of solo plays in Arabic.
Our thanks go to those who initiated this special festival, who chose Acco as the location of the Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre. We laud the past and present mayors of Acco, who have undertaken the endeavor of conducting this important cultural enterprise under the flag of this beauteous city.
And to the present assembly of those involved: the mayor, workers, artists, and audience of spectators – we wish a successful, enjoyable, and enriching festival.
With warm regards,
                                                                                
                                                                                      Raleb Majadele
                                                                    Minister of Science, Culture, and Sport

 

A message from the Director, Old Acre Development Corp.

The Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre – one of the most important cultural events in Israel as a whole and in Acco in particular. It represents a wonderful tradition of original artistic creation in this enchanted city that offers the charms of its alleyways, antiquities, marketplaces, scents, colors, the new with the old, as it creates for its visitors a human theatrical spectacle, the largest and most magical in Israeli culture.
Over the years, the Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre has become a unique and significant incubator for alternative theatre, by virtue of its artists, playwrights, directors, producers, actors, and stage crews.
The Old Acre Development Corp., working through the Ministry of Tourism among many other governmental offices, along with the Municipality of Acco, has invested great efforts to continue the development and preservation of this unique city with its rich past and sites attractive to tourists from Israel and abroad.
With thanks to all the participants in this endeavor, with wishes for success, and much enjoyment for the Festival’s guests,
Wishing you all happy holidays,
                                                                                  
                                                                                     David Harari
                                                           Director, Old Acre Development Corp., Ltd.

A message from the General Director, Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre

The experience of theatre transforming itself each year in Acco, becomes an artistic creation of thought and artifice which the viewer can encounter only here.
The principle of preserving originality, continuing for 28 consecutive years, has enabled Israeli theatre to harvest its fruits, enjoying the products of the experimental laboratory that is the Acco Festival.
The unique spaces of Acco grant each time anew the motivation that refreshes and inspires the artists, directors, playwrights, actors, set designers, musicians, and all the production crews, who experience the originality of creation amid the city’s ancient stones.
The unique textures and special magic of Acco, with its diverse marketplaces and its tradition of hospitality, continue to give a platform to young artists alongside stage veterans, Jews and Arabs, immigrants and longtime inhabitants, who share a common endeavor: new and original Israeli artistic creation.
Thanks go to all who engage in the craft of artistic creation and production.
Thanks are extended as well to the Festival management, the Ministry of Science, Culture, and Sport, to the Municipality of Acco, the Ministry of Tourism, the Old Acco Development Corporation, the Mif’al ha-Pais National Lottery, the Galilee Development Authority, the Jewish Agency, and all the foundations and organizations who support the Festival.
Wishing all a happy and enjoyable theatre holiday,
                                                                        

                                                                          Albert Ben-Shloosh
                                                            General Director and Chief Producer
                                                         Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre

 

A message from the Artistic Director, Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre

Each year the expectation awakens as to what picture will emerge and arise, among the cornucopia of offerings presented to the Acco Festival. What will that picture reflect? Will its outline be drawn in clearly identifiable lines?
Among this year’s many and varied attempts, all indicate ways of dealing with reality. There are attempts to flee from it into fantasy, illness, or insanity, to investigate it as counterposed to an alternate reality, or a transition and transformation towards the future.
In these works a sort of filtering can be perceived, that allows for creating within this reality, and at the same time a search for ways to escape it. The work of art makes it possible to deal with its complex and even cruel aspects, to challenge reality, to penetrate it, or to rise above it. At a remove it may be said: to find salvation in artistic creation.
We have the exciting evidence that the majority of these creative artists are young people seeking and setting out on their way, while their voice is clear as they choose to sound off in differing and diverse ways. This is the generation of the future, whose voice is to be cultivated, heard, and broadcast.
This year, we’ve entrusted Avi Gibson Bar-El and Yinon Zafrir of the Ortho-Da Theatre with the artistic management and production of the street theatre venue. We join them in looking forward to seeing in the courtyards and streets a flourishing scene of creative works, with the artists presenting their shows in the open air, united as they develop and take their place on Israel’s artistic performance map.
With thanks to Avigail for her rare talents and abilities,
and thanks to the Artistic Committee, whose hearts are filled with the arts and artistic creation, and their souls with dedication and caring.

                                                                                        
                                                                                            Daniella Michaeli
                                                                                             Artistic Director
                                                              Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre