Q: Why did you decide to stage your production on a platform?

It's very much in the way that Shakespeare would have – the actors come on, they do the scene, they go off. We don't have a lot of scenery so this concept allowed us to just do it very simply – here are the actors, here's the platform, let's do the play.

Q: Why did you decide to stage the play as a performance in a Sicilian town?

If everyone already knows the story, I wondered if there was any way that the people on stage can share with the audience the fact that we all know the story. Very early on, I had this idea that it would be performed by a community of people living in Italy who already know the play and perform it once a year. That would free me from the idea that we all have to pretend that the audience don't know what happens.

Q: You stage your production as a 'play within a play' – so who are the audience?

We thought that if two Sicilian clans got together to perform this play at the top of the town, to contain their own violence, then other people would come and watch. So they are performing it for themselves and the other people. So you become those other people! You've walked up a hill on a hot summer's night and are watching Romeo and Juliet under the stars! But it doesn't matter if the audience don't get that. It's just the back story – it doesn't matter if the audience doesn't know - it gives us a context to make the play in. I'm giving you an extra layer that other people won't have!