class="">5 short plays (performative reading)

of of  by Alex Gorghe

The story follows a tense discussion between a mother, her daughter and her uncle at a family party. The daughter announces that she is pregnant but intends to have an abortion, which triggers a painful confrontation between her and her mother. The daughter expresses her resentment of her mother’s unstable childhood, and the conversation uncovers deep traumas and misunderstandings. The uncle tries to remain calm, but tensions quickly escalate, revealing dysfunctional family relationships.

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Alex Gorghe is a young writer. He studied applied theater at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and then did a Master’s in Dramatic Writing at UNATC Bucharest (I.L. Caragiale National University of Theatre and Film). He has written several plays that have been performed on the Romanian theater stage: The Boy with Pink Socks (staged at the Excelsior Theatre); My Mother’s Dog, I’m ashamed, DN83 (staged at the Replika Educational Theatre Center), Ostrich Hunt (sound theatre performance at the Improbabil Theatre), Memoirs of a LoLo (staged at the Reactor of Creation and Experiment), Potential Energy – text in the works (performative reading within the Political Theatre Platform), Petunia (performative reading at the Odeon Theatre). He has also published a novel, Son of Cruelty, at Creator Publishing. As an undergraduate he started facilitating playwriting and creative writing workshops with teenagers, young women and young men.

A wo-man by Iulia Enkelana

What is freedom, normality and destiny? How many of the things we do are nothing more than the result of conventions? Who is in a position to separate normality from abnormality, and how do such demarcations still affect us today? How many ways can life be lived?

In some Balkan countries (Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina…. ), until the 70s and 80s, there was an ancient phenomenon of sworn virgins: women who, when there were no men in the family (they had died or only girls were born) or when they wanted to elegantly refuse a marriage, took an oath of chastity and dressed in men’s clothes, were allowed to drink, smoke, work, walk freely in the city, make decisions or hold weapons – being accepted by the community and treated as men. A young documentary film-maker goes back to her roots in Albania and meets a sworn virgin with the aim of interviewing her and understanding her lifestyle and perception.

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Iulia Enkelana (pseudonym Iulia-Maria Kyçyku, b. 1999) is the author of several plays published in collective volumes (The Bird Skeleton, directed by Vlaicu Golcea at the Postnazional Interfonic Theatre and nominated for the Tamási Áron Drama Prize; The Sign; The Broken Wing of the Dragonfly), of the novel If There Is a Voice, as well as of several poems, short stories and essays. She has made several independent short films (Imperfect circles, MATCH, Prenaissance, The Birth of an Idea, I had to pawn the diamond, etc.), selected at various festivals. In 2021, she graduated in Theater Studies at the Department of Theater and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University, and in 2024, she will graduate with a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies (“Society, Multimedia, Performance”) at the Center of Excellence in Image Studies, University of Bucharest.

Final Destination by Sever Bârzan

Final Destination is the story of the encounter between Mitică, a subway mechanic on the verge of retirement, and Florentin, a young technical inspector of Metrorex, in the driver’s cabin of an IVA (Arad wagon company) type wagon manufactured in the 70s.

The text brings to the spotlight, through the dialogue between the two characters, a debate on the process of modernization of underground transport, from two different perspectives, namely Mitică’s nostalgic, visionary and conservative values and Florentin’s new, digital and convenience-oriented perspective.

The intrigue is triggered by the news that this journey the two are making together is most likely the last one for the subway garrison led by Mitică in the last three decades, and the ending is dominated by a twist of fate that invites the viewer to introspect and to further reach his own conclusions.

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Andrei Sever Bârzan (b. 1988) is an actor, playwright, sound designer and improviser. Born in Bucharest, he graduated from the Acting Department of the Performing Arts at UNATC, class of 2010. Throughout his career he has collaborated both as an actor and sound designer, with directors such as Bogdan Georgescu, Ioana Păun, David Schwartz, Matei Lucaci Grunberg, Andrei Huțuleac, Alex Bogdan. With some of them he also collaborated as a playwright. The first staged text (dir: Dora Bârzan) is Radikal, in 2015 staged at Green Hours. It was followed by Who’s Afraid of Mitică or Beware, the water is cut off! (dir: Matei Lucaci Grunberg) in 2017, also at Green Hours. In 2019, the third staged text (dir: Sever and Dora Bârzan) And they didn’t live happily ever after was also screened as a TV drama and entered the TVR Golden Archive. In 2021 he is co-writing with Matei Lucaci Grunberg the text I did what I could, staged by the latter in the framework of the Ideo Ideis workshops. Between 2022 and 2023 he is co-writing with Matei Lucaci Grunberg the texts Artists’ Plant, Scenes from the life of Maria Filotti and Carnival Stories – a text with a problem, staged by the latter at the Municipal Theatre Bacovia, the Maria Filotti Theatre Brăila and the Cultural Center Lumina.

You are allowed to scream by Teodora Savu

In the finals of the European Taekwondo Championships, a sportswoman dissects her career, her actions and the motives behind her obsession with winning in all aspects of life, at the expense of family, pure love or inner peace. A brief portrait of life as a relentless pursuit of success.

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Teodora Savu is a theater director and playwright. She started writing after graduating from the Directing Department at UNATC. Her first play, Menada, won the 2022 Bacău Fest Monodramas playwriting contest and was among the winners of the OFF-STAGE #1 contest, organized by Apollo111, and the National Playwriting Contest organized by the Romanian Writers’ Union. She staged her second text, Umami, at Hearth Association, and her third play, I will set this plane on fire, won her the second Bacău Fest Monodramas trophy in 2024.

Replace me by Alma Andreescu

Replace me – an unusual breakup in a theater foyer before the show. Vlad is late for his (probably last) date with Lili, but he comes up with a proposal that he hopes will ease the pain of his break-up. He brings Silviu with him, a very nice boy and perhaps more suitable for Lili?

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Alma Andreescu. After studying film, radio and TV in Canterbury, UK and helping to create an international film festival in London, she returned to Romania and began collaborating with Inversee Media, with whom she has made both independent film productions and commercial videos. Must Love Kubrick, the short film she wrote and directed, a UK co-production, was selected at TIFF 2018, Batumi in Georgia and in Oaxaca, Mexico, was part of Cannes Short Film Corner and later distributed internationally by ShortsTV. She has also been involved as a translator and/or assistant in Nottara Theatre productions, most notably assisting with Robert Thomas’ 8 Women, directed by Andreas Merz. She is the director of Klara’s Relationships by Dea Loher, for which she obtained funding in partnership with the Goethe Institute, which debuted at the Apropo Theater Bucharest in 2023. She is currently the camera operator for the live projections of Gianina Cărbunariu’s show at the Nottara Theatre (Stela after Simona Goșu) and is working on the dramatization of the novel Black Milk by Elif Shafak, for the Nottara Theatre’s playwriting competition, where she was selected. She is a first year student at the UNATC Master in Dramatic Writing.