The Arezzo Play Art Festival

The medieval town of Arezzo is getting ready for the 2008 Second Edition of the The PLAY Arezzo Art Festival, after the great success of the 2007 First Edition. It is organized by the local council and province of Arezzo and again this year is expected to bring thousands of people in town.

The festival is a cultural and art event with street buskers, cinema, theatre, dance and big live concerts all “under the same sky” like the organizers like to say. The same sky under which all the artists will be exhibiting, the big infinity that contains our planet and our lives, the sky from which people has always taken his own spiritual, religious, philosophical, poetic or artistic inspiration.

The historical center of Arezzo, where all the different stages will be hosted will be ideally wrapped by this unique sky that will act as a joint between the different arts and feelings. Most stages will be at the open air, some of them will be in theatres and cinemas.

The PLAY Arezzo Art Festival will start on Wendesday 23 July with some local theatre productions and will continue, virtually uninterrupted, until Sunday 27 July. These will be the major attractions:

Thursday 24 July, Fragments by Peter Brook at the Teatro Petrarca theatre (repeated on Friday 25).
Friday 25 July - Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals at the Il Prato della Fortezza Medicea park.
Saturday 26 July - The Subsonica at the Il Prato della Fortezza Medicea park.
Sunday 27 July - Goran Bregovic at the Il Prato della Fortezza Medicea park.

The Festival is considered to be the continuation of the Arezzo Wave Festival, a similar event that had been going on for 20 years and that had been moved to Livorno in the Tuscan cost for logistic reasons. There have been some complains about this change at the beginning. However, the target for this new festival is probably wider and it looks like this new event is now better appreciated then the previous one by the local Aretini people.