International Showcase at the 55th Week of Slovenian Drama
28th March – 2nd April 2025, Kranj, Slovenia
Organised annually by the Prešeren Theatre Kranj since 1971, the prestigious theatre festival Week of Slovenian Drama presents the most successful performances based on a Slovenian play or text staged by Slovene theatres in the last season.
The 55th Week of Slovenian Drama will take place from 27th March to 12th April 2025 and will host 16 performances based on Slovenian texts, among which seven are in the main programme, five in the accompanying programme and four in the programme for youth. The 55th edition of the festival will also be hosting the first DoSEL International Showcase, presenting five performances originally written and performed in smaller European languages. The performances presendted in the showcase programme are from Kosovo, Bulgaria, Malta, Spain and Slovenia.
Programme of the showcase will be enriched by a research presentation on the drama of smaller European languages in the international space.
Ismail Kadare: The Traitor's Niche
Produced by: Kosovo National Theatre, Pristina, Kosovo
Presented: 28th March 2025 at 19:30, Prešeren Theatre Kranj, hall
“To maintain power, the Ottoman Empire will do its best to capture the head of the rebel leader, Ali Pasha Tepelena, who, trapped in his fortress, hopes that the Albanians will go after him as they once went after Skanderbeg.”
The Ottoman Empire has begun to weaken because the states under its occupation have started efforts for independence. To preserve power and image in the eyes of its citizens, the empire has placed in the main square of the capital the niche of shame: the place where the heads of traitors will be exposed for all the world to see. But one head is challenging to capture: that of the head Albanian rebel, 80-year-old Ali Pasha Tepelena. But the Sultan is able to do his best to capture the head of Ali Pasha, who, holed up in his fortress, hopes that Albanians everywhere will respond positively to his invitation to join the war against the empire, as they did with Skanderbeg a few centuries ago.
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Dramatized by: Doruntina Basha
Director: Kushtrim Koliqi
Asst. Director: Qendresa Spahiu, Ardijana Mehmeti, Djellëza Dedushi
Composer: Adhurim Grezda
Choreographer: Erna Salihu
Set designer: Bekim Korça
Costume designer: Yllka Brada
Lighting design: Yann Perregaux
Dramaturge: Zoga Çeta Çitaku
Video Artist: Miran Bratus
Design: Nita Qahili
Photographer: Elton Alickaj
Supervisor: Mursel Haziri
Lighting: Mursel Bekteshi
Tonist: Avdi Gërvalla
Cast: Adrian Morina, Armend Smajli, Ylber Bardhi, Gresa Pallaska, Bislim Muçaj, Kosovare Krasniqi, Zana Berisha, Fiona Abdullahu, Art Pasha, Gentrit Shala, Florenta Bajraktari, Jehona Gash
Thea Denoljubova: Oh My God
Produced by: Ivan Vazov National Theatre, Sofia, Bulgaria
Presented: 29th March 2025 at 20.00, Prešeren Theatre Kranj, hall
“A lonely man at a bar table turns to the other visitors. It turns out that the bar belongs to Judas and the man is Christ. Or so He claims. Why? What does He want to accomplish if it is really Him? The play “Oh My God” is a call for humanity and love in times when God’s word is misused and instead of being a source of life, it is used to justify destruction. The team of the show invites you to a warm, sincere conversation about the deepest topic that seeks answers in the heart and mind of every person. A conversation with a smile and a tear, with irony and compassion.”
“The encounter of the mysterious visitor with the others present in the bar (the audience) seems to occur on that thin line between drunken babbling and true revelation. However, very soon the sensation of the latter prevails, perhaps because everyone desires that fate-defining and enlightening conversation with God to be possible – whether in the chamber hall of the National Theatre or anywhere else… The splendid text by Thea Denoljubova was created especially for Hristo Mutafchiev with much love and enjoyment of the intellectual play, with which the author redefines numerous biblical concepts and events, giving them human dimensions. At the center of this cosmogony is the free human individual.” – Irina Gigova, Sega.bg
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Stage version, staging and sound picture: Stoyan Radev
Artist: Elitsa Georgieva
Dramaturg of the performance: Mirela Ivanova
Assistant-director: Boryana Miteva
Design of poster: Nikolay Dimitrov NAD
Cast: Hristo Mutafchiev
Thea Denoljubova graduated in Art Direction and Advertising from the European Institute of Design in Milan. Her poetry book Put Me on Pause (2010) won the “Petya Dubarova” poetry competition and was later published in Italian bookstores. Two years later, her novel Boyan was released and showcased in major cities, including Brussels, London, and Rome. She has been a speaker at TED conferences and also the recipient of various literary awards, including a nomination for the “Flight in Art” award from the Stoyan Kambarev Foundation and the Varna Award for outstanding achievements in poetic art. In November 2023, her debut theatrical production, Oh My God (Ivan Vazov National Theatre, directed by Stoyan Radev, a monodrama performed by Hristo Mutafchiev), premiered to critical acclaim. The play has been nominated for the 2024 Icarus Award for Playwriting, the 2024 ASKEER Award for Contemporary Bulgarian Drama, and received a special prize for new Bulgarian dramatic text at the 2024 Solo Act International Monodrama Festival. It also earned a dramaturgy award from the Drumevi Theatrical Festivities.
Lovro Kuhar – Prežihov Voranc: Struggle at the Sinkhole
Produced by: Prešeren Theatre Kranj and City Theatre Ptuj, Slovenia
Presented: 30th March 2025 at 19.30, Prešeren Theatre Kranj, hall
Prežihov Voranc’s texts Struggle at the Sinkhole, Teardrops and The Self-Sown are considered Slovenian literary classics, and their film adaptations have helped to etch them deep into the historical memory of the Slovenian nation. The poignant story of the Dihur family, struggling to survive on their harsh, muddy patch of land, is literally written into our genes. Today, the cult story also allows us a reading that reveals all those “overlooked”, not yet fully articulated layers of this unbelievably cruel story.
The story of the Dihurs is thus not just a story from some distant rural past: it is very much one we still live in today, and increasingly so amid the social distress, albeit in perhaps a little more sophisticated and covert form. The violence that occurs as a consequence of the struggle to survive and of the powerlessness when fighting the land and bureaucracy – be it in a village or a town – always finds its path to cruelty. Through his sensitive and radical staging approach, director Jernej Lorenci touches upon the theme of cruelty and the struggle to survive.
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“Running in place, the mode of movement that in contemporary Slovenian theatre frequently serves as a metaphor for social and intimate hopelessness, appears in Struggle at the Sinkhole as a perfect image of choreography and music or sound. The production’s excellent cast members do not step out of the minimalist performing frame, neither with their exhausted bodies nor with their breathless voices. This is a production about the controlled and contained distress that kills – inwardly and outwardly. Struggle at the Sinkhole meticulously continues and completes Jernej Lorenci’s theatre opus.” Petra Vidali, Večer, 30 March 2024
Director: Jernej Lorenci
Choreographer and assistant director: Gregor Luštek
Dramaturg: Marinka Poštrak
Set designer: Branko Hojnik
Costume designer: Belinda Radulović
Composer: Branko Rožman
Language consultant: Maja Cerar
Lighting designer: Nejc Plevnik
Sound designers: Matija Zelič, Stefan Gladović
Make-up artist: Matej Pajntar
Assistant to the dramaturg: Tilen Oblak
Assistant to the composer: Jure Žavbi
The song “Zdaj smo delo dokončali” is sung by Varja Mihajlović Cerar and Daša Selan.
Cast: Darja Reichman, Živa Selan, Blaž Setnikar/Gregor Luštek as guest, Branko Jordan as guest
André Mangion: Drago
Produced by: National Agency for the Performing Arts, Teatru Malta, Malta
Presented: 1st April 2025 at 18.30, Trainstation SubArt, Kranj
The tumultuous life of Tony “Tornado” Drago, Malta’s snooker and pool legend, was first brought on stage by Teatru Malta in collaboration with the Valletta Cultural Agency with Drago in 2022.
Drago sizzles with the same intensity as the hotheaded sportsman who put Malta on the global snooker map in the 1980s and 90s. Playwright André Mangion’s conversations with the man himself, along with stories shared by those closest to him, serve as the backbone of this biographical journey, in an evocative monologue that channels the unfiltered voice of its subject.
The language of the play brings to life his fiery temper, his relentless speed around the snooker table, and his rise to international acclaim. His triumphs and struggles are woven into a narrative that gives its fair share of air time to the myth and the man behind it. Through Mangion’s script and the direction of Teatru Malta artistic director Sean Buhagiar, the play transcends the concept of a sports biography, and becomes an exploration of identity, culture, and the human drive for greatness.
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Script: André Mangion
Concept and direction: Sean Buhagiar
Life rights: Tony Drago
Performer: Peter Galea
Art and audiovisual direction: Charlie Cauchi
Technical direction and sound/video installation design: Niels Plotard
Light design: Late Interactive (original – Andrew Schembri, touring – Toni Gialanze’)
Production management: Giuliana Barbaro-Sant, Rowena Zammit
Stage management: Sara Gauci
Operation: George Sapiano
Pere Riera: Casa Calores
Produced by: Sala Beckett, Barcelona, Spain
Presented: 1st April 2025 at 20.00, Prešeren Theatre Kranj, hall
Summers are treasured seasons. And it is said that youth is the most treasured stage of life. And when you are young, one of the best things that can happen to you is spending your summers by the sea. If, on top of that, you were born in a village with boats and a breakwater, it is possible that all the summers of your youth are soaked in warm and salty memories. At Casa Calores, the years go by, the pot plants wither, and clothes cease to fly on the clotheslines. The grown-ups that survive grow old; and young people who couldn’t wait to grow up fast, try to put a stop to the inexorable passage of time. A time that confronts them with the most treasured of dangers: the past.
Pere Riera is one of the essential playwrights on the current Catalan theatre scene. With works premiered at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya or at different theatres on the professional circuit, one of his first dramatic texts remained unfairly unseen on our stages. Casa Calores is a personal snapshot, produced with tenderness and sensitivity, of the passage of time in a house.
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”A realistic theatre in which we even smell the whiff of damp, remarkably well directed and well performed and with the contribution of such star guests in secondary roles as Rosa Renom […] and Jordi Boixaderas […]. A real luxury.” – Santi Fondevila, Diari Ara
”Riera recreates what Jaime Gil de Biedma poetized as “the last summer of our youth”. Sebastià Brosa’s realistic scenography enhances that microclimate that can only be conjured up from nostalgia.” – Sergi Doria, ABC
Playwright and director: Pere Riera
Voiceover: Pablo Derqui
Set design: Sebastià Brosa
Lighting: Guillem Gelabert
Sound: Jordi Bonet
Costumes: Marian Coromina
Characterisation: Clàudia Abbad
Photography and promotional video: Kiku Piñol
Set design assistant: Laura Martínez Pi
Costume assistant: Gemma Pellejero
Assistant director: Xavi Buxeda i Marcet
Directing internship student (MUET): Lluís Victory
Acknowledgements: Estudis Oído, Antonio Cruanyes, Dolors Plana, Glòria Cruanyes and Jaume Plana
Cast: Jordi Boixaderas, Júlia Bonjoch, Arnau Comas, Eudald Font, Rosa Gamiz, Júlia Molins
Drama of Smaller European Languages in the International Space: Success Stories
Research presentation
Organised by: DoSEL project
Presented: 31st March at 17.30, Škrlovec Tower Gallery, Kranj
As a part of the international project Drama of Smaller European Languages, the partners will focus on developing a comprehensive approach to enhance international recognisability of drama texts. They will identify the stories of individual texts’ successes and prepare case studies that will explore which unique circumstances were the key to the success of those particular texts or performances. How can these insights be applied to the present and future work of the European theatre sector? Jonathan Meth, the manager of the international network The Fence, will present the findings from the research conducted thus far.
Umberto Eco
Email: info@tsd.si
Address: Prešeren Theatre Kranj, Glavni trg 6, 4000 Kranj, Slovenia
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
