Bulgarian Theatre in the Spotlight of Experts from Three Continents
Theatre professionals from the USA, South Korea, and Eastern Europe are arriving in Varna for the Varna Summer International Theatre Festival. From 6th till 10th June, they will attend the special Theatre Showcase featuring Bulgarian performances from the festival programme, presented with surtitles in English. The showcase aims to promote Bulgarian theatre abroad by providing a platform for dialogue and exchange between local and international performing arts makers and professionals. The programme seeks to highlight current achievements of the Bulgarian theatre scene, facilitating the presentations of its productions at international festivals and their coverage in foreign media. This year, the project is supported by the National Culture Fund under the “Festivals” programme.
Among the international guests is the distinguished theatre scholars Marvin Carlson, a Professor Emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has received the ATHE Career Achievement Award as well as the award from the American Society for Theatre Research for outstanding research in theatre history. He is the founding editor of the journal European Stages. Prof. Carlson is the author of over 330 scholarly articles and twenty-three books. His work has been translated into 23 languages, including Bulgarian, mostly in the Homo Ludens Theatre Journal. This is the first time that Marvin Carlson is coming to the Varna Summer Theatre Festival. Unlike Kim Yul-Cheon from South Korea, honorary president of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IACT), who has been a regular guest of the Showcase. Another active representative of the IACT attending this year’s edition is Savas Patsalidis from Greece, professor Emeritus at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, editor-in-chief of the specialized online theatre platform Critical Stages, and consultant for the Thessaloniki International Theatre Festival. Other special guests include festival programmers and journalists from the Czech Republic, Turkey, Romania, and North Macedonia.
Their encounter with Bulgarian theatre begins on 6th June with Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Stoyan Radev, a production of the Satirical Theatre. The programme continues with In the Dark, a solo performance by Albena Stavreva for the National Theatre; Public Enemy by Henrik Ibsen, directed by Chris Sharkov at the Small City Theatre Off the Chanel; and Anna, The Incorrigible, a performance dedicated to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, produced by Orenda Art Centre and the Regional Centre for Contemporary Arts Toplocentrala in Sofia. The Varna Drama Theatre is presenting As You Like It by William Shakespeare, directed by the renowned Romanian director Gábor Tompa. The programme concludes on 10th June with an evening dedicated to ancient tragedy, featuring two productions by the celebrated British director Declan Donnellan: Medea by Euripides, staged at the National Theatre, and the timeless Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, a guest-performance by the National Theatre in Craiova.
International and Bulgarian festival guests will also participate in the regular professional discussion Projections of the Tragic in Contemporary Theatre held on 8th June at 10:30 AM in the Drama Theatre, first balcony foyer. They will also explore Varna’s history through a special tour of the Archaeological Museum.
All performances in the Showcase programme are open to the general public and foreign visitors to the city. Tickets for the performances can be purchased at the ticket offices of TMPC – Varna and the Festival and Congress Centre, as well as online at fccvarna.bg.