Midsummer Scene Festival is rooted in Dubrovnik’s centuries-old tradition of open-air theatre.

For eleven seasons, our festival has brought English-language productions to audiences from around the world, beneath the walls of Lovrjenac and across international stages –  continuing Dubrovnik’s long conversation between theatre, literature, discovery, and imagination.

This summer, Midsummer Scene returns to Fort Lovrijenac with three very different journeys bound by a single thread: the power of storytelling to conjure entire worlds from almost nothing — a sword, a book, a shadow, a voice.

Our main production, One for All – A Three Musketeers Tale, written by Filip Krenus and directed by Sean Aita, reimagines Alexandre Dumas’ great adventure through the eyes of actors, vagabonds, and survivors who rebuild a lost world through performance itself. Aita returns to Dubrovnik for his sixth season at the fortress and his fourth production for Midsummer Scene, having previously directed Romeo and Juliet and Around the World in Eighty Days, as well as co-writing A Poor Player with Krenus. Wit, theatrical invention, music, and emotional truth remain at the heart of the festival’s style – qualities perfectly suited to a tale where friendship becomes rebellion, and storytelling itself becomes an act of survival. Inspired by travelling players and imagined as an action-packed comedy, One for All was written especially for Lovrjenac – one of the most evocative theatrical spaces in the world.

This season also marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Marin Getaldić – Dubrovnik’s mathematician, philosopher, scientist, and seeker of hidden knowledge. In honour of the anniversary, we present A Wizard in the Cave, written by Filip Krenus and directed by Paul Anthony Morris: a chamber piece about science, solitude, wonder, and the shadowy border between reason and magic, in seventeenth-century Dubrovnik – a city where astronomy, poetry, theatre, and experiments with burning mirrors once stood side by side.

Alongside these productions, we continue one of the festival’s central artistic journeys: bringing Dubrovnik’s literary heritage into English for new audiences. This year we present Plakir, Son of Cupid, Filip Krenus’ new translation of Marin Držić’s great pastoral comedy with the lost title, published by the House of Marin Držić and presented in English for the first time. Following previous Držić productions and translations presented by the festival since 2017, the project continues our commitment to preserving and reimagining Dubrovnik’s theatrical inheritance for international audiences.

Featuring imprisoned actors turned musketeers, Season Twelve moves between comedy, myth, illusion, and adventure. Yet all three events share the same impulse: to celebrate theatre as an act of collective imagination – playful, moving, and wonderfully alive.

For centuries, stories have echoed beneath the walls of Dubrovnik. We are honoured to add our voices to them once again.