STA, 14 October 2019 - The 54th Maribor Theatre Festival (Festival Borštnikovo) will get under way today with an international conference on ways to develop theatre audiences. Running until 27 October, the country's leading theatre event will feature a record 42 productions from Slovenia and abroad.
While the festival officially opens on Friday, the busy schedule, which is in keeping with last year's programme expansion, already starts with the segments Young and Student Theatre today.
"Both were already conceived last year as permanent festival features, which we want to develop further in the future. They feature Slovenian as well as foreign productions and make for a kind of joint festival platform for the development of new audiences, which we see as a primary mission," the festival's artistic director Aleš Novak said.
Meanwhile, a selection of theatre productions staged in Slovenia in the last season reamins at the core of the festival. The first of 12 shows in the competition programme is scheduled for Saturday.
Awards will be conferred on the final day of the festival, including the Borštnik Ring for lifetime achievement, which this year goes to Marinka Štern.
The list of the competing shows includes two productions each by SNG Drama Ljubljana (In the Name of the Mother, and Ali: Fear Eats Your Soul), by Mladinsko Theatre (No Title Yet, and The Opposite) and by Ljubljana City Theatre (Fireflies, and A Silent Breath).
Also selected were the Damned by Drama SNG Maribor, Inventor On Earth by Anton Podbevšek Theatre, Macbeth by SNG Nova Gorica, At Dawn by the Prešeren Theatre from Kranj, River, River by the Delak institute, and The Misanthrope by the Slovenian People's Theatre from Celje.
The accompanying programme features 19 more productions, seven of which from abroad. One of the highlights will be a performance by British critically-acclaimed physical theatre company Gecko, led by artistic director Amit Lahav, who will play their hit show The Wedding.
The festival will also feature talks about the shows, an international conference on theatre criticism, a regional meeting of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), a panel on theatre professionals, concerts, and guided tours of Slovenia's second largest city.
The website with all the details can be found here
