Maribor Theatre Festival starts with The Tempest
Maribor, 9 June - The 58th Maribor Theatre Festival is officially opening on Friday with the Tempest by Alessandro Serra, which will be put on by the Teatro Regio from Turin, Italy. The country's prime theatre festival will close on 18 June with an awards ceremony.
Maribor
SNG Maribor theatre, the main venue of the Maribor Theatre Festival.
Photo: Andreja Seršen Dobaj/STA
A dozen plays staged between January and December 2022 will compete for the festival's awards, while the accompanying programme will feature four foreign and eight Slovenian productions.
The opening ceremony at the SNG Maribor theatre will be addressed by the festival's artistic director Aleš Novak, Culture Minister Asta Vrečko and Italian ambassador Carlo Campanile, who along with the Italian Cultural Institute is the honorary sponsor of the opening performance.
With some of the introductory events dedicated to up-and-coming artists being held as early as May for the first time this year, the main part of the festival started on Monday, featuring plays from the accompanying programme. The competitive programme starts today.
The jury assessing the plays comprises of theatre critic Matej Bogataj, Croatian actress and director Senka Bulić, director Peter Petkovšek, dramaturge Ajda Rooss and German director Johannes Nölting.
Apart from theatre plays, the festival will also bring discussions, presentations of books on theatre, exhibitions, concerts and other events.
Honouring the first Slovenian professional actor and director Ignacij Borštnik since 1966, the annual Borštnik Ring, the country's highest theatre accolade, will be conferred on Nataša Matjašec Rošker, a member of the SNG Maribor theatre.
She will receive the ring at the closing ceremony, at which other festival awards will also be conferred.