Thursday, September 29 the press conference on the 21st edition of the National Theater Festival (due to begin Friday, October 28, and end Sunday, November 6) was held at UNITER headquarters. The program submitted by the artistic director and sole selector of the festival appointed by the UNITER Senate, the theater critic Alice Georgescu, includes [b]33[/b] productions, [b]12[/b] conferences and meetings with personalities of theatrical life, [b]9[/b] theater books launches, [b]10[/b] radio shows, exhibitions. [b]30[/b] different spaces will be used and [b]70[/b] guests from Romania and abroad are awaited in Bucharest. The selector announced that, due to financial reasons, the number of foreign guest shows is smaller in this edition. They are: Three Sisters by A.P. Chekhov, directed by Andrei Şerban, the National Theater of Budapest, Hungary; The Seagull by A.P. Chekhov, directed by Christian Benedetti, Théâtre-Studio, Paris and Attic in Paris by Matei Vişniec, directed by Alain Lecucq, Papierthéâtre, France; Traveling Stories-Cape Verde, selection of texts and dramaturgy by Natalia Luiza, directed by Miguel Seabra, Teatro Meridional, Lisbon, Portugal. The spiritual patron of the 21st edition is Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, whose words serving as motto – “Man is a strange animal…” – encapsulate, in various ways, all the selected performances. Thus, Bucharest audiences will see a collection of shows inspired by Chekhov, besides performances of plays by Shakespeare, Buchner, Camus or Caragiale, as well as shows based on contemporary Romanian and foreign texts, transposed into both classical, “traditional” theatrical formulas and modern, “nonconformist” ones. Widely acknowledged stage directors are to be found in the festival program, such as Andrei Şerban, Radu Penciulescu, Silviu Purcărete, Alexandru Tocilescu, Victor Ioan Frunză, Alexander Hausvater, László Bocsárdi, Gábor Tompa, Alexandru Dabija, Mihai Măniuţiu, Alexandru Darie, Yuri Kordonsky, Radu Afrim, Theodor Cristian Popescu, joined by the younger Radu Alexandru Nica, Peter Kerek, Zsolt Harsányi, Alexandru Mâzgăreanu, Alexandru Mihail, Ioana Păun.
