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Debrecen hosts one of Hungary’s biggest theatre events this year, the XV Deszka Festival. Between the 9th and the 18th of May, 31 performances will be presented in 8 venues over 10 days. The festival will also feature music, film screenings and talks.
For the fifteenth time, the Csokonai National Theatre Debrecen, the Vojtina Puppet Theatre and the Playwrights’ Round Table will organise Deszka Festival, a celebration of contemporary Hungarian drama, between 9th and the 18th of May. A preview of the event was held on Wednesday, on the occasion of the World Theatre Day. This year’s festival has invited companies from all over the country to celebrate contemporary Hungarian drama. The National Theatre, Játékszín, Örkény István Theatre, Radnóti Miklós Theatre, József Attila Theatre, Szolnok Szigligeti Theatre and Pécs National Theatre are among the many theatres that have been invited to participate.1
“An explosion is being prepared, in which there will be 31 performances, accompanying programs, a competition for drama translation, all in ten days. We expect very serious interest and from the preliminary inquiries we see that people will come,” Mátyássy Szabolcs Director of the Csokonai National Theatre said.
The Festival will also feature performances by theatre communities from across the border, including the Hungarian State Theatre of Cluj-Napoca, Kosztolányi Dezső Theatre in Ostrava and Harag György Company from Satu Mare. This year’s guest of honour will be Károly Szakonyi, Kossuth and József Attila Prize-winning playwright, whose play Adáshiba will be performed by the Játékszín company. An essential part of Deszka this year as well is GÖRDESZKA (SKATEBOARD), the festival’s children and youth section, which features performances that are (also) aimed at young people. The host Vojtina Puppet Theatre will be joined by guest performances among others by Budapest Puppet Theatre and Vaskakas Puppet Theatre from Győr.
“The city has both a historical tradition and an ambition to spread its cultural influence as far as possible within Hungary and beyond its borders. Deszka is a very important moment of this role,” Deputy Mayor István Puskás emphasised.
The IV. Csokonai Theatre Pedagogy and Theatre Education Conference is also part of the Festival, where, in addition to the theatre performances, the interested public can take part in professional discussions and workshops. The programme, organised by the Csokonai Youth Programme (CSIP), focuses on individual and social crises and traumas experienced in childhood. As part of the Festival, the Theatre of the University of Debrecen will announce the results of its drama translation competition titled „Egy sima, egy fordított” (One smooth, one inverted) during the Festival. In addition, a production of the winning entries will be presented, directed by Imelda Hajdu, an actor from the Csokonai National Theatre.
In the framework of the XV. DESZKA Festival, all those who wish to submit their entries to the playwriting competition entitled Debrecen 175, jointly organised by the Municipality of Debrecen and the Csokonai National Theatre, are invited to a documentation meeting. In order to make the drama texts as successful as possible, and to illustrate an important period in the history of the municipality, the 1849 capital of Debrecen and its historical circumstances, the afternoon will be an opportunity to meet renowned historians, local historians and archivists who will present important sites, documents and personalities of the period, and provide scientific inspiration for the drama texts, which can be submitted until the 30th of June.
This year, lovers of contemporary Hungarian drama are welcome at eight locations, in addition to Csokonai Theater, at the three stages of Csokonai Forum (Latinovits Zoltán room, Kóti Árpád room, Simor Ottó Orfeum), Vojtina Puppet Theater, Pásti Street Synagogue, Apolló cinema and Dósa nádor Square.
In addition to the theatre performances, we organise audience meetings and discussions after them, and guests can also enjoy concerts at Dósa nádor Square, while Apolló cinema will also join the program and will screen films related to the performances during the Festival.
The sale of tickets for the performances of the XV. Deszka Festival will start online and at the ticket offices of the theatres after the Easter holiday, on the 2nd of April. You can find the detailed program here.
Source: debrecen.hu
