| The New Drama festival begins in Moscow The “New Drama,” which will begin in two weeks in Moscow and which the organizers spoke about at a press conference held yesterday at the Meyerhold Center, is a hybrid of a theater festival, a club party and a scientific conference. For the first time, the theater people paid special attention to the dramaturgy emerging in the surrounding area (supported and nurtured by this attention) in 2002: then the Golden Mask, Teatr.doc and the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater established the New Drama. Since then, the festival has been held twice in Moscow and once in St. Petersburg.
The main events of “New Drama” this year will take place at the Meyerhold Center. Only those performances included in the program that are on “their” stages will remain there - such as, for example, “Playing the Victim” by the Presnyakov brothers, staged by Kirill Serebrennikov at the Moscow Art Theater or the play “Sliding Luce” (Laura Cynthia Cherniauskaite, director Vladimir Skvortsov , Moscow Center for Drama and Directing, constantly working on the stage of the Vysotsky Center). At CIM you will be able to see the creations of new drama enthusiasts from Lithuania (“The City” by Evgeniy Grishkovets, directed by Oskaras Korsunovas and Saulius Mikolaitis), Iceland (“Drift” by Jon Atli Jonasson, directed by Haflidi Arngrimsson), Poland (“Mine” by Michal Walczak, directed by Piotr Kruschinski) and Tolyatti (Mutter by Vyacheslav Durnenkov, director Galina Shvetsova-Skripinskaya).
But this is only an evening, “festival” program (the plays for it were selected by CIM art director Pavel Rudnev). The CIM will open every day at eleven in the morning, and people keenly interested in new dramaturgy will be offered a special program with discussions and readings of plays. The days will be themed: one will be devoted to a discussion of how sex is depicted in contemporary art (codenamed "Intimacy: To Offer or Not to Offer?"), another to new British drama (this program is supported by the British Council), and a third to fashion to documentary (the same person is responsible for this program as for all culture in our newspaper - Alena Solntseva).
The “New Drama” festival, one of the founders of which was originally the “Golden Mask” festival, largely repeats the principles of organizing the “senior” festival. It will also be not only a festival, but also a competition - the awards “Best Performance of the Festival” (Grand Prix), “Best Actor”, “Best Actress”, “Best Play in Russian” and a Special Jury Prize have been established. Likewise, coffee sponsor Nescafe Gold will support the People's Choice Awards and the 'Are the Audience with Us?' program, which invites theatergoers to ask playwrights questions, rewarding the most interesting question. And, like “Golden Mask”, “New Drama” is starting its own festival club - every evening during the entire festival (from September 22 to 30) from 21.00 there will be “Night Espresso”, where poets and musicians will perform. Anna GORDEEVA |
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