Romanian National Theater Festival
19th Edition

The work of the famous stage directress is for the first time introduced to Romania by the NTF. Tonight at 19.00, at Elvira Popescu cinema, the 2009 National Theater Festival, with support from the Embassy of France and of the French Institute, invites you to a memorable meeting with the work of Ariane Mnouchkine: Bernard Zitzermann’s film of the show produced in 2007 by the Theatre du Soleil, Les éphémères.

Four hours of a show that spans the entire 20th century by means of happenings in the lives of ordinary people. A show that has traveled the whole world with huge success, the most recent in the prestigious New York Lincoln Center Festival last summer.

Five of the shows included in the 2009 NTF have already been sold out: Zoika’s Apartment by Mikhail Bulgakov, directed by Alexandru Tocilescu; Joan and the Fire by Matei Visniec, directed by Catalina Buzoianu – both productions of the Comedy Theater; The Suicide by Nikolai Erdman, directed by Felix Alexa, produced by the Bucharest National Theater; and both performances of Orpheus and Eurydice, directed by Alexandru Darie, and Lear, directed by Andrei Serban, produced by Bulandra Theater.

If you are interested in the other shows in the Festival, you should hurry up and buy tickets. This is a unique chance to see the best shows in the country performed on Bucharest stages.

Eleven theaters from nine Romanian cities are coming to Bucharest for the National Theater Festival.

“This year, the artists selected in the 19th edition of the National Theater Festival are co-financing the event, because they have accepted to perform without fee, while the efforts of those from outside Bucharest are even greater, as they will be paying for their own transport to Bucharest,” says Cristina Modreanu, 2009 NTF selector.

Thus, Bucharest audiences, and not only, will have the chance to see, between October 31 and November 8, last season’s best productions of Romanian theaters.

Felix Crainicu, David Schwartz and Alexandru Mihaescu are the three stage directors selected by Cristina Modreanu this year for the NTF Debut section, the last two with two shows each. The short list of the section initiated last year is completed by Bogdan Georgescu, a playwright and stage director, a dynamic presence in Romanian theater and original explorer of the performing arts with a critical, open, participative potential.

The series of shows in the Debut section of the 2009 NTF begins at the most dynamic independent theater in Bucharest, LUNI (Monday) Theater at Green Hours that has scheduled for Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1 at 22.00 Make Room! by Mihaela Michailov, directed by David Schwartz. Cristina Modreanu, 2009 NTF selector, saw in this show “an expression of the revolt of a generation against the incompetent state apparatus, indifferent to the problems of ordinary people.”

One of the new entries in the 2009 National Theater Festival is the Opera Revival module, consisting of five productions from Bucharest and Cluj, staged by renowned theater directors: Mihai Măniuţiu, Alexandru Darie and Ion Caramitru. The productions of the other two directors, Petrică Ionescu and Gigi Căciuleanu, represent instances of successful cooperation with the National Opera in Bucharest, the chief host of these productions.

“It has been an obvious fact for over twenty years that opera has found great support in theater directors whose massive intervention instilled more theatricality in opera, helping this genre draw again public attention. As this trend has luckily been felt on Romanian stages as well, this year the National Theater Festival opened a section dedicated to operatic shows created by theater directors,” NTF selector Cristina Modreanu says.