site.btaVarna to Host "To the Stars" International Monodrama Festival

The "To the Stars" International Monodrama Festival will be held from August 3 through 9 at the Festival and Congress Centre in the port city of Varna, the organizers from the Osnova-Ta Foundation told BTA. The event will be held under the auspices of Vice President Iliana Iotova.

This year's edition will present Marius Kurkinski's collective mono-performance Marius 50, Zdrava Kamenova's mono-performance The Hit of the Season, directed by Elitsa Yovcheva, as well as guest performances from Kosovo and Albania. 

French director Thierry Harcourt will hold a master class during the forum. Harcourt, who works in London, Paris and New York, also staged Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in 2007 and Jean Anouilh's Thieves' Carnival in 2018. The performance directed by Harcourt will be on stage on August 9, the organizers said. 

The fest will also feature a first-time meeting and discussion between psychoanalysts, doctors, artists, culturologists, musicians, writers, journalists. The topic is "What we think about creativity, healing and the intellect?" in the context of the limitation of bodies, artificial intelligence and the soul. Participants will offer insights into processes of creation, freedom of thought and body, and the creative act, organizers say. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Veleslava Donkina-Krastev, who holds a PhD in psychology from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and is a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The meeting is on August 6 at 18:00.

The International Monodrama Festival was established by actor Marius Donkin in 2006 who is a honorary citizen of both Sofia and Varna, which has already hosted ten editions of the event.