• Prológ
• Csokonai Theatre at international festivals
• Minden oldal

In the life of Csokonai Theatre a whole new area has been discovered by organizing festivals since 2006. With the set of programmes we intend to attract even wider strata of audience to our theatre. This course of actions help us – in spite of being a provincial theatre – to preserve our reputation among national and international theatrical events.

Festivals

DESZKA 2011 plakat 550DESZKA Festival: Contemporary Drama Festival (DESZKA – Association of the playwrights and theatre critics)

To the DESZKA Festival, which was held in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 we invited 10–12 theatrical performances for each festival, in Hungarian, selected by the jury from among the works of contemporary Hungarian playwrights, staged in the previous seasons. Besides the performances, round-table disputes, stage-reading, drama-translation seminars, playwright-director-audience meetings, book launches, exhibitions, and actor-playwright-drama high school, an indoor competition are included in the schedule. Every year the festival invites a "country-special guest": we have invited 6–8 prominent critics, directors, dramaturges, translators, agents from countries with significant tendencies in contemporary drama. Our aim is that the best contemporary Hungarian playwrights should be introduced to our guests and present their works. France was the first guest country in 2008.

Starting with the 2006/07 season the new leadership (general manager, artistic director) aims to establish a regional centre by a new artistic program and by creating a network for international contacts. This network may function in a most natural way since in the neighbouring countries already exists an expansive Hungarian language acting, and also due to the fact that the Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Croatian theatre cultures have an impact on its Hungarian language minority theatres and through this channel they bring new colours into Hungarian theatres as well. This region creates a collective European cultural region.

International Bethlehem-Play Meeting

2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. 2011

In 1990 the Hungarian Cultural Institute, for the first time in Central Europe, launched its first set of ventures named International Bethlehem-Play Meeting with the aim of researching and keeping alive the dramatic folk heritages and traditions of the Carpathian lowlands. In 2006 the Bethlehem-Play Meeting moved to Debrecen thanks to the Csokonai Theatre, thus making it possible for anthropologists as well as for the explorers of authentic culture, theatregoers and wider public to meet these exceptional performances live.

JEL Festival

2006, 2009

Jel Festival: Attila Vidnyanszky and Josef NadjWe organize the Jel Festival in September. This week-long event focuses on one outstanding theatre artist. The performances of József Nagy

and the Jel Theatre create a unique, unmistakable, expressive world on an almost empty stage or in a space which is a visual composition itself. At the first festival in 2006 we celebrated the 20th anniversary of József Nagy's career.

The second Jel Festival was organized as a collaboration with the French project Tumulus and with the participation of József Nagy. The opening evening of the festival was devoted to the presentation of Myriam Bloedé's monograph about József Nagy and continued with an exciting discussion with the artist about the process of creating an ecological theatre space. Next year we would like to create a festival program together with Grotowski Institute. This festival will try to present and explore primarily the anthropological tendencies in the world of theatre.