If there is a place where theatre really plays a special role in the community’s life with a deep impact on the local quality of life, this is the small island of Terceira, in the Azores (Portugal). Terceira hosts a peculiar kind of Carnival: something very different from any other European Carnival. Here masks and Carnival floats are mostly substituted by theatrical shows: written, prepared and performed by and for the local community. This festival constitutes a bottom-up expression of the popular creativity, with an important identity meaning for the island and its communities, which, year after year, on different levels, in a complex interplay between centre and periphery, local and global, contributes to define and confirm the relationships between the different villages on the island itself; the relationships with the capital and the Nation on the continent, and the relationships with the global context. Every year, starting months before Carnival, 40 to 80 groups of people, each one formed by 15–20 persons, prepare their theatrical shows, which entail dancing, singing, and acting (often in verse), according to peculiar structures and rules. Owing to the relevance of the Carnival for the community and the central role played by feasts in the life of Terceira, the island is plenty of theatrical stages. Since mostly every village hosts its own community theatre, there are about 40 theatrical stages. It means more than 10.000 people gathered for 4 days in the different theatres of the island, to see, cheer, and comment the different exhibitions, and, of course, to support the local Carnival group, or the local groups.