Little City Theatre Off the Channel,Bulgaria Info Bulgarian Map Properties

Little City Theatre "Off the Channel"was founded in January 1990 by a group of actors including some of Bulgaria's most popular and acclaimed performers, and the youngest theatre director at the time - Borislav Chakrinov. The founders had left the company of Drama Theatre "Sofia" and with this act of self-definition were amidst the first to attempt and succeed in reforming the Bulgarian theatre system.

The theatre is subsidised by the Municipality of Sofia and is one of total 4 municipal theatres in the city.

The company consists of 18 performers - 5 actresses and 13 actors. A 5-member administrative team runs the theatre with 26 staff members in technical and support positions. Staff and company alike are employed on an annual basis.

The theatre is housed in a small but extremely cosy building just off the Perlova River in Poduene - a neighbourhood in the centre of the city. Its auditorium seats 212.

Over the 10 years of its existence, the repertory of the theatre has included playwrights of worldwide significance - Schnitzler, Jarry, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, Tennessee Williams, Mamet, Chekhov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Gogol, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy, Schiller, Kafka and the Bulgarian classics Anton Strashimirov, Pencho and Petko Slaveikov. Over the recent seasons the theatre focuses on modern European and Bulgarian drama and has staged plays by Stanislav Stratiev, Georgi Danailov, Margarit Minkov, Dusan Kovachevic, Yuri Dachev, Eduardo de Filippo. Olya Muhina, Georg Tabori, Stratis Karas, Ken Ludwig, Martin McDonagh, Yasmina Reza.

The unique artistic climate in the theatre attracts the most outstanding Bulgarian directors. The company's 18 actors and actresses are by far not the only performers either. About 30 visiting actors could be seen on stage including many of the youngest in Bulgarian theatre. Along with the company's starts Itzhak Finzi, Ilka Zafirova, Aneta Sotirova, Hristo Mutafchiev and Georgi Russev, the Little City Theatre's stage features leading Bulgarian actors such as Tzvetana Maneva, Atanas Atanassov, Todor Kolev, Zlatina Todeva, Vladimir Penev.

The theatre has a special programme for young audiences and children with a new production each year which is far from common in the theatre practice in Sofia.

Over the 10 years of its existence over 800 reviews have been published about the theatre in both Bulgarian and international periodicals.
Little City Theatre "Off the Channel" has toured in Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Tel Aviv, Romania, Macedonia. It took part at the Paris autumn festival where it was greeted cordially by Peter Brook,; at the Berlin Festival, the Skopje Summer Festival, "Exodus" - Ljubljana.
The theatre had a world premiere at the Weimar European City of Culture '99.

Productions of the Little City Theatre are shown at all national and international festivals in Bulgaria: Apollonia Festival of the Arts, Sozopol; International Theatre Festival Varna Summer; Festival of Chamber Theatre, Vratsa; European Month of Culture, Plovdiv 99; Drumev Theatre Days "New Bulgarian Drama", Shumen; Festival of Theatre, Blagoevgrad; Stage at Crossroads, Plovdiv.

Most of the productions of Little City Theatre "Off the Channel", as also their directors, actors, designers or composers have been nominated or received prestigious theatre awards.

Since June 1995 the theatre is run by a new management team - prominent theatre director Bina Haralampieva and the young, talented playwright Yuri Dachev whose plays are staged at the theatre.

High priority in the theatre's policy is its ambition to be in dynamic contact with international partners and audiences, to participate in international projects and open its stage to theatre-makers from all over the world who feel the need and curiosity in meeting their Bulgarian colleagues.

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Little City Theatre Off the Channel

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