by Panna Adorjáni Can the theater be for everyone? And if it can, how exactly can it do that? Does subsidized theater have the ability to attract everyone? The fact that young people are no longer interested in the theater or that there are no performances for children, the fact that the theater is too elitist or that the level of the artworks is on a downward spiral – all these otherwise burning issues have become as many clichés used by applicants to various management positions, who promise that all these issues will be solved once and for all. Undisputedly,…
Interview with Florence Kirubi Florence Kirubi is a teacher, educationalist, drama writer and director based in Nairobi, Kenya. She was trained in Teaching, Communication, Leadership and Counseling. She has worked extensively with people in numerous community-based activities in rural and urban Kenya. She has also worked in several other places outside Kenya, including other African countries, Europe, Jamaica and Japan. How did you get involved in doing theatre and community work? I was trained as a teacher and became a classroom teacher for 16 years. During the time I also involved myself with drama, even though it was very negligible…
Interview with Andrei Sever Bârzan, Andreea Eșanu and Alice Monica Marinescu “I’m not ashamed to work. We all have the right to work to make ends meet. I wash toilets and I also teach. I’m working, not loitering! And besides, I like working with children. I’ve always loved them.” In 2007, the story of Rodica Sandu – a cleaning lady at Telec school in Bicazu Ardelean – was hyped up by the media, who emphasized the degradation of the education system. Rodica Sandu began teaching English at the school where half the teaching hours were available after she passed the…
Interview with Irina Vacarciuc CasaM is a theater performance dealing with the lives of women who have been victims of domestic violence in The Republic of Moldova. The performance developed from interviews conducted with women from villages across the country, it premiered in 2010 in Chișinău and it was staged in over 40 villages and small towns in Moldova. The cast is made up of Snejana Puica, Mihaela Strâmbeanu, Ina Surdu, Irina Vacarciuc, directed by Luminița Țîcu. I talked to Irina Vacarciuc, an actress on the independent scene, about the performance and the interaction with an audience unfamiliar with theater…
by Costi Rogozanu I attempt to answer the question “Why is there not enough literature about marginal groups?” with my own cheap rhetorical ploy: “Why is there not enough literature?” We have literature by the gallon, but, with only a few exceptions, I find that the tons of published fiction keep floating in two distinct bubbles: the aesthetic chimera and the commercial one. Writers in the first group have old-fashion dreams, they reject any trace of manifesto, any sense of urgency dictated by the present and, in blatant disregard of their own aesthetic ambitions, they reject the lessons of realism…
Interview with Valentina Ivanov Valentina Ivanov left Serbia because of the Yugoslav Wars. In 2000, she came to Romania together with her husband and two children. After three years of struggle and lawsuits, Valentina and her family acquired refugee status. Ten years after arriving in Romania, Valentina and her two children became Romanian citizens. Her story inspired one of the five characters from the play Born in the Wrong Place. I met her when we started rehearsing for the performance and she made quite an impression on me. She exudes positive energy and seems to have a smile on her…
Interview with Hilda Twongyeirwe How did it all start with FEMRITE, the Ugandan Women Writers’ Association? The association started from a need to give women writers in Uganda visibility and space to write. During that time, there were very few women writers and even those few writers were not really recognized in mainstream writing. That is how we started to promote women writers and to create more women writers through training workshops. Our main activity is to train women in creative writing skills and to provide space for them to write. We however have writing programs where we also consider…