Understand the season

War, exile and utopia

The 2027 INDA season takes its title from three connected ideas: Guerra, Esilio, Utopia. What happens to people after a city falls? What does a community owe someone it has abandoned? Can a new society escape the failings of the old one?

Euripides’ The Trojan Women, Aristophanes’ The Birds and Sophocles’ Philoctetes approach those questions through tragedy and comedy. A modern adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey brings the programme together through a figure who is soldier, displaced traveller and would-be homecomer.

INDA is Italy’s National Institute of Ancient Drama. Its modern performance tradition at Siracusa began in 1914 with Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. Today’s productions use contemporary direction and design to explore ancient texts in a setting built for theatre. The appeal lies in seeing these arguments performed, with actors and an audience sharing the open air.

Athens and Siracusa

Why the historical background matters here

The three original plays were first performed in Athens between 415 and 409 BC, during the Peloponnesian War. Their mythical settings gave an Athenian audience space to consider its own society: the use of force, the treatment of outsiders and the responsibilities of citizenship.

Siracusa has a direct place in that history. Athens launched its Sicilian expedition in 415 BC; it ended in catastrophic defeat here in 413 BC. The Trojan Women and The Birds therefore belong to the years before the disaster, while Philoctetes was produced after it, and after Athens’ oligarchic coup of 411 BC and the subsequent restoration of democracy.

That sequence matters. These works do not all respond to the same event, and their characters are not simple portraits of contemporary politicians. They reveal different ways theatre could question a city at war. Watching them in Siracusa adds the perspective of a place which resisted Athenian expansion.

A guide before you take your seat

The four productions

The Birds — Aristophanes

Gli Uccelli · Comedy, first performed in 414 BC · Directed by Davide Livermore

Two Athenians, tired of life in their city, seek a more agreeable place to live. Their encounter with the birds leads to an extraordinary proposal: build a city between earth and heaven. The fantasy offers escape, but ambition soon follows them into the new society.

Written while the Sicilian expedition was under way, the comedy invites questions about expansion and the desire to remake the world. Its imaginary city is both an ingenious alternative to Athens and an uncomfortable reflection of it. Does the dream of freedom become another bid for control?

Choose this for the season’s comic counterpoint: political ideas expressed through invention, absurdity and the possibilities of a chorus of birds. INDA production details.

The Trojan Women — Euripides

Troiane · Tragedy, first performed in 415 BC · Directed by Theodoros Terzopoulos

Troy has fallen. Hecuba, Cassandra and Andromache wait to learn which Greek conqueror will claim them. The action follows the defeated women, confronting the audience with enslavement, bereavement and the destruction of family life. The fate of Andromache’s young son makes the victors’ brutality especially difficult to evade.

The play was staged before Athens’ defeat in Sicily. Its force comes from asking a Greek audience to look at Greek victory through the suffering of the conquered. INDA places it under the heading of war: the subject is what remains when the fighting is over.

Choose this for the programme’s most direct encounter with civilian suffering and the moral cost of conquest. INDA production details.

Philoctetes — Sophocles

Filottete · Tragedy, first performed in 409 BC · Directed by Luca Micheletti

Abandoned on Lemnos because of a painful wound, Philoctetes has spent ten years alone. Now the Greeks need him: a prophecy says Troy cannot fall without his bow, inherited from Heracles. Odysseus sends the young Neoptolemus to gain his trust through deception.

The young man’s growing discomfort turns a military mission into a conflict between expediency and honesty. Can the needs of an army justify betraying someone already wronged?

For an Athenian audience living through war and political upheaval, questions of trust and belonging had immediate weight. The production’s place within INDA’s theme of exile brings attention to the person excluded until he becomes useful again.

Choose this for an intimate ethical struggle centred on loyalty, persuasion and an injured man’s dignity. INDA production details.

Ulysses, the Last Odyssey — after Homer

Ulisse, l’ultima Odissea · A modern adaptation · Directed by Giuliano Peparini

Still unable to reach Ithaca, Odysseus recalls his wanderings. A singer and a chorus of travellers help bring encounters with figures such as Calypso, Circe and the Cyclops into the present. Spoken narrative, music and dance shape this retelling.

Homer’s epic belongs to an earlier tradition than the fifth-century Athenian plays. It follows the difficult return from the Trojan War and gives the season a different historical and theatrical foundation. This is a modern work drawn from epic poetry, rather than a surviving classical stage play.

The journey connects all three themes: a warrior leaves the battlefield, lives away from home and encounters alternative worlds. Choose it if the combination of storytelling, music and movement particularly appeals. INDA production details.

Choose your dates first

2027 performance calendar

All dates below are in 2027. May performances begin at 19:00; June performances at 19:30, local time. The four main productions run on the dates below.

A highlight of your Sicily holiday

Your theatre evening, taken care of

A performance at the Greek Theatre gives a stay in Siracusa a special focus: time to explore Ortigia, enjoy lunch by the sea and return to your hotel before an evening of live drama in an ancient setting. Allowing several nights here leaves room to enjoy both the festival and the city at an unhurried pace.

ExpertoItaly brings the arrangements together, from your theatre tickets and hotel to transfers for the evening. Tell us which productions interest you and we will shape the stay around them, taking care of the details so you can enjoy the experience.

The productions are performed in Italian. The stories and themes introduced above provide a useful starting point; we can advise on the language support available for your chosen performance and any seating or access requirements.

INDA welcomed more than 200,000 attendances during its 2026 season. With a limited run for each production and a choice of small, characterful places to stay, an early enquiry gives us more scope to bring together your preferred play, room and holiday dates.

Two different ways to enjoy Siracusa

Where to stay for the festival

Three nights can accommodate a performance and an introduction to the city. Four or five give more room for two theatre evenings, Ortigia, Neapolis and a day towards Noto. Choose the setting you would enjoy between performances.

La Giuggiulena

A small, family-run B&B on Siracusa’s quieter rocky shoreline, with breakfasts above the water and direct sea access for confident swimmers. Ortigia is around twenty minutes away on foot.

It suits couples who want city discoveries balanced with time beside the sea. A sea-view room with a balcony makes a particularly appealing base between theatre evenings.

Explore La Giuggiulena

Algilà Ortigia Charme Hotel

A historic hotel in Ortigia, with characterful Sicilian interiors and the waterfront close at hand. Its location makes market visits, churches, restaurants and evening walks easy to fit around the theatre.

Choose it if staying within the old town is central to the holiday. We can arrange your theatre evening around a relaxed stay in the heart of Ortigia.

Explore Algilà

For the wider choice of stays and arrangements, see our Siracusa and Ortigia holidays.

Give the journey a memorable final chapter

Finish a wider Sicily holiday in Siracusa

The theatre can give a multi-centre holiday a clear ending. We can shape the route around your chosen performance, with the final four or five nights in Siracusa combining theatre, time by the sea and discoveries in Ortigia.

Taormina or Etna, then Siracusa

For ten to fourteen nights, pair Siracusa with one northern base: Taormina for its town, gardens and coastal setting, or the Etna area for vineyards and volcanic landscapes. Finish with Ortigia and the festival. Our Taormina and Siracusa holiday provides a starting point which we can lengthen and adapt around the programme.

The Baroque south-east, then the theatre

Begin around Ragusa or Modica, exploring the towns of the Val di Noto, then move to Siracusa for the final stay. This gives inland architecture and food their own time before the waterfront and Greek drama. Ten nights divided between two bases can work particularly well.

A longer journey across Sicily

With two to three weeks, a route can begin in Palermo, continue towards the temples of Agrigento and finish in Siracusa. The longer distances need proper overnight stops. We can arrange a self-drive journey or selected private transfers, shaping the route around your interests and the festival dates.