© Anelia Nikolova
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The Ministry of Culture has announced a competition for the appointment of a new director of the Ivan Vazov National Theater. The term of office of the current incumbent Marius Donkin expired on September 1. At the end of October, the term of office of the director of the Satirical Theater, currently headed by Kalin Sarmenov, expired, but a competition for his position has not yet been announced.
According to the announcement on the website of the cultural department, the requirements for the candidates include higher education in the field of arts and a master’s degree in theatrical art, at least 5 years of professional experience in the field of culture and organizational and managerial competence. Candidates will have to present a concept for the development of the Ivan Vazov National Theater for a period of five years, which will be discussed at an interview with the candidates. The deadline for submitting application documents expires on November 30.
The last months of the current director’s term have passed in the light of his conflict with the former director of the theater, Alexander Morfov. In August, Morfov circulated a letter to the media alleging that the play “Hash”, directed by Morfov, would not be staged at the Ivan Vazov National Theater while Donkin was the director.
The play has been part of the National Theater’s program since 2004. His last performance was in February 2020, and after the lifting of measures against the spread of COVID-19 he was not included at all in the bill of the National Theater. After a petition on social networks demanding that “Hashes” be returned to the National Theater’s bill, the Cultural Institute announced that the performance would return to the big stage on September 13, when theatrical evenings of the Theater in Front of the Theater campaign began, but and it didn’t happen.
Morfov then announced that, at his insistence, the show would not be played while Marius Donkin was director. The reason, he said, was that Donkin had refused to allow time and space for rehearsals. Shortly afterwards, the National Theater came out with its position, signed by director Marius Donkin, stating that “Hashes” could not be played because they did not have copyrights for their music. They also claim that there was no veto on Morfov’s performances, but the specific performance was not played due to its scale, which was almost impossible to implement in a post-pandemic situation.
The theater pointed out at the time that many other iconic titles such as “Attempt to Fly”, “Caligula”, “The Ideal Man”, “The Karamazov Brothers”, etc. had not been performed since the pandemic. of the National Theater.
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