Inside the National Theatre
Before I get going about the theatre (yay!), my friend and tech guru, John, created a feed for you loyal readers to access the blog. (For those of you who use feedreaders...aren't we all so tech-savvy these days?) Hopefully, this will make it easier for you to know when I update.
On to All that Jazz...in the midst of the gas crisis (check out this news report for an alarming description of the impact: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28692207, controversial art, and protests (about which I haven't blogged, but I'm sure you've seen the news...there have been multiple and sometimes violent protests the past week, continuing this weekend, in front of parliament about corruption in the government and such...) that make you all think I live in a third world country, I got a taste of Bulgarian progress.
Boris Pankin, the performing arts director at school, is also a director at the Ivan Ivanov Bulgarian National Theatre. He very generously took Betsy and me to see his production of All that Jazz. For the non-theatre folk in my audience let me give you a brief backstory: All that Jazz, the 1979 movie about Bob Fosse was never performed on stage. Boris contacted Sony and acquired the rights to turn it into a stage production, and to translate the dialogue into Bulgarian (though he kept the musical numbers in English.) He told us that he was later contacted by Fosse's daughter by letter wishing him success with this project. So cool. So what we saw is theatre history, and successful history at that as it is running in it's fourth year. Also of note is that musical theatre is virtually nonexistent in Bulgaria. There are actors, singers, and dancers in the country, but no one is trained to do all and incorporate them into musicals. Boris and his team have provided all of the training for these performers. It's pretty amazing.
props backstage...the white bed which was used in the second act was our hangout
When we went downtown on Thursday night, Boris showed us other theatres on "Bulgarian Broadway" including the military theatre, where all members of the company were in the armed forces, the theatre of tears and laughter, the all comedy theatre, Theatre 199, so named for its 199 seats, and the Children's Theatre, currently showing Oliver (shown in that order below).
He taught us that the Bulgarian version of "break a leg" is "have a nice trip" and that their superstition is to never whistle (apparently it invites the audience to whistle back.) We toured the theatre, which is beautiful, hung out backstage before the show and during intermission (actually sitting on props from the show), and met everyone from the stage manager to the props guys, the lighting designer to some of the most famous stage and tv actors in the country. We watched some rehearsals before moving to the best seats in the house. They were all so nice to us! The theatre community here is small and friendly. Perhaps the highlight of the evening for me was when Boris gave us permission to photo and film anything we wanted, even during the show.
pre-show rehearsal
Enjoy the benefit of Boris's generosity and the best of Bulgarian theatre in photos! I'll upload video under a separate post.
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