A new season of performances

With the start of the new season comes a renewed cultural agenda. A new wave of festivals, concerts and local productions will fill the island’s cultural scene, and back with a packed programme is Rialto Theatre. Returning after a summer break, the Limassol theatre’s September agenda includes theatre, dance, music from abroad and the island and the first edition of a stand-up comedy festival. Here’s what to expect next month.

To start the new season, Rialto Theatre will first welcome a play in Greek. The Play That Goes Wrong is an Olivier-awarded farce written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields that has been presented in more than 30 countries. Alpha Cyprus has taken on its Cypriot adaptation and is presenting the comedy from September 13 to 16.

Then on September 17, Andre Rieu’s 2023 Maastricht Concert – Love is All Around will be screened on the Rialto Theatre big screen. The King of the Waltz will present a brand-new concert filled with uplifting music, spectacular performances and romantic waltzes from his hometown Maastricht which Cypriot audiences can enjoy in the cinema. Alongside the Johann Strauss Orchestra, the concert will feature a Gospel Choir and special surprise guests.

On September 20, Petros Konnaris will present Performing Silence as part of FlashArt 2023. Performing Silence is a research project exploring how to listen to something subtle, the density of silence, as well as activating the silent and unseen moments. Ten performers will join forces to bring this to life and during the performance, visitors will be allowed to walk around the space to experience this silence.

What will follow next is the first-ever Stand-up Comedy Festival, a three-day occasion held at Heroes’ Square on September 22-24. Organised by Stantar Kkomety in collaboration with the Rialto Theatre, the festival will feature of course stand-up comedy shows, music comedies and performances, an open mic night as well as discussions on the local comedy scene.

Continuing September’s agenda is a play about Dinos Christianopoulos, a prominent Greek poet and a man of contradictions who becomes the subject of the latest play by journalist, filmmaker and writer Antonis Boskoitis unveilinig the two sides of the Greek contemporary poet and novelist. September 27’s performance is a theatrical staging of an epic interview given by Christianopoulos to Boskoitis in 2013, which caused a sensation when it was first published the day after the poet’s death.

Two events will wrap up the month as it comes to a close on September 30. First is a morning interactive workshop by the Cultural movement Epilogi with four hands piano music. Titled Let’s Save Music, the 11am children’s workshop will be a musical adventure with a haunted castle, a piano that only plays spooky music and a family of witches, monsters, and ghosts. Children audiences will have the chance to solve music quizzes, open closed doors and help the music escape.

Finally, as the Open House Festival presents the performance MOS at 8.30pm, Rialto Theatre’s September agenda concludes. Two performers on stage explore movement, sound, and image in a piece choreographed by Ioanna Paraskevopoulou.

September at Rialto Theatre

Tickets, times and details at www.rialto.com.cy