The Acco Festival of Alternative Theatre, now marking 36 years since its founding, is a lodestone for culture-lovers from all over the country, with a tradition of innovation in mounting new, original works of theatre. It is one of the most important cultural events in Israel and particularly in Acco. Hundreds of thousands of people who attend the street shows highlight the artistic mosaic which has turned the Acco Festival into one of the most special and unique festivals in Israel. The festival will take place during the Sukkot holiday, from September 28 to October 1, 2015.

Awarded recognition by UNESCO as a world cultural heritage preservation site, Acco is a city where Jews, Arabs, and Christians live together in harmony, with mutual respect for each others' cultures. The festival takes place in a unique city where visitors can enjoy its alleyways, antiquities, marketplaces, scents, the new and the old, creating for the visitor the greatest, magical human theatrical show in Israeli culture.

This year the Acco Festival goes international, hosting fringe theatre shows from all over the world and a large delegation of performing artists from China. Alongside the competition performances, the festival presents a wide and rich variety of open-air and street performances from Israel and abroad.

A special production for the Acco Festival this year is “The Gypsies are Coming…” This is a rich and authentic Gypsy celebration, a family of wanderers with a special circus of their own. For the duration of the Festival the Old City’s Moat Garden will be transformed into a Gypsy encampment.

Artistic Director Gil Alon: "This year the theatre will meet with additional arts and engage in dialogue with them. Theatre that incorporates opera, live music, video, dance, and movement. Theatre with an urge for adventurousness."