Renovation works will take place in the historical building of the theater by the end of 2022, therefore the premises of the Riga Latvian Society will become the temporary home of the collective, where the box office and the fireplace hall will be located in the future, and technical, administrative, warehouse and workshop premises will be located at 106 Lāčplēša Street.
In the 78th season, changes have taken place in the composition of the theater’s staff – long-term author Māris Koristins will continue to work freelance, but the theater’s staff will be supplemented by director Edgars Niklasons, who has staged several performances as a guest director at LLT last season. In 2014, E. Niklasons chose to create his diploma thesis “Herbe with a Big Hat” at the Latvian Puppet Theater, confirming his interest in the aesthetics of puppets, objects and visual theater.
“I am already writing my diploma work at the Puppet Theater, and since then my interest in this type of theater, in the theater of form and visuals, has only grown. In total, I have staged 4 performances at the Latvian Puppet Theater, and I didn’t have to think for a long time when the management of the theater invited me to join the staff. I am very happy about this opportunity and I think we all have a creative and interesting time ahead of us. The next year and a half for the theater will be full of challenges, also technically difficult, living between two buildings, but at the same time this period of change is also an opportunity to get out of the routine and redefine the values we want to see in the theater and bring to the audience. ”
In the autumn of 2021, the new staff director will stage his original work “Katliņpauris” – a story about the friendship of a boy and a strange, old man, all unseen. In addition, under the direction of Edgar Niklason, the first puppet or live puppet animation “Nina and Le Corbusier” mini-series will be filmed already in August, with which it is planned to supplement the theatre’s digital offer. Nina is a little girl who, together with her turtle Le Corbusier, learns the world of her emotions and thoughts through unusual situations, adventures and questions, learning to understand and accept them.
In the autumn period, the theater’s Latvian troupe will have two more productions – Hans Christian Andersen’s “Princess on a Pea” directed by Vija Blūzma and Andrejs Usačovs “Smart Dog Soņa” directed by Yuri Lunik.
From August 7, the performances of the Latvian Puppet Theater will be shown in the Fireplace Hall of the Riga Latvian Society House. Taking into account the limited number of seats in the hall and the great interest of the spectators, from August 3, several additional performances in both Latvian and Russian have been added to the repertoire. Find the repertoire and rules for going to the theater www.lelluteatris.lv.
Edgars Niklasons is a theater director and playwright, who began his professional career in 2011/2012. However, in recent years he has been active in staging children’s and youth performances at the Latvian Puppet Theater, M. Chekhov’s Riga Russian Theater, Rezekne Theater “Joriks” and other theaters, as well as in various independent performing arts projects. He acquired knowledge in theater art at the Latvian Academy of Culture, the Latvian Academy of Arts and the Janāček Academy of Music in Brno, Czech Republic.
