Contemporary Drama Festival Budapest, 27 November – 2 December 2013

Contemporary Drama Festival Budapest (27 November – 2 December 2013) is here with the most innovative and most exciting new Hungarian theatre performances, which are all subtitled in English! This year, the focus is on the young theatre generation; you can see performances about Hungary’s informer past (Meltdown, Secrets of Ours) corruption (Corruption, A Profitable Position) and even some theatre “delights”. The international Contemporary Drama Festival is the one and only event in Hungary that exclusively deals with the introduction of new Hungarian and foreign dramatic works.

The festival was first organised in 1997. After the extremely big interest of foreign countries and the success in Hungary as well, the organizers decided that the following festivals should be organised in every two years. At the second event, besides the Hungarian performances, the audience could watch guest performances from foreign countries as well, and the program was completed with a wide range of international supporting programs. The third festival in 2001 also had a Devised Theatre Workshop as a complementary programme, aiming to let young theatre experts of the Middle-East-European region to get acquainted with a certain way of creating a performance. In addition, an international book fair of theatrical books and publications was organised. Also in 2001, a Drama Translating Seminar was organized in order to stimulate translation of Hungarian dramatic texts to other languages.

The existence of the festival is extremely important not only for the Hungarian, but also for the whole European drama writing and theatrical life as well. First, it provides a possibility to watch fine quality performances based on contemporary dramatic texts from several European countries. Second, it creates a vivid and continuous relationship between the European theatre experts, thus enabling the international exchange of experiences and the formation of professional connections crossing the borders.

The impacts of the various editions of the festival are many. European electronic and printed media wrote about all festivals in detail, thus letting the European cultural society learn more about the current situation of Hungarian theatre. The texts and performances presented in the festival were also promoted abroad by the invited theatre experts (more than 50 people, and members of the invited theatre companies as well). Consequently, many of these performances and plays were invited to international festivals and play-reading programmes. On the other hand, many new impulses from European countries reached the Hungarian theatre culture. As a result, the number of contemporary foreign plays being premiered on Hungarian stages has been continuously rising ever since.

For more information: http://www.dramafestival.hu/

Photo: Vera Eder and Gabor Dusa

Source: http://www.dramafestival.hu/