site.btaDeclan Donnellan Begins Rehearsals of "Medea" at National Theatre

World-renowned director Declan Donnellan and set designer Nick Ormerod have begun rehearsals for the National Theatre's production of Euripides' Medea, the company announced. The premiere performances are on October 9 and 10.

"With Cheek by Jowl we visited Bulgaria for the first time in the late 1980s and even then we were struck by the thirst for theatre in this country. For us, beginning rehearsals of Medea with the wonderful cast of actors from the National Theatre in Sofia is an incredible opportunity to explore Euripides' transgressive masterpiece, which is still as shocking today as it was during its first performance in Athens over two thousand years ago," say Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod.

More than thirty years ago, Declan Donnellan, together with set designer Nick Ormerod, founded the legendary British theatre company Cheek by Jowl, which they run as artistic directors. The two have written over fifty shows, presented on more than 400 stages worldwide.

At the invitation of the National Theatre, this year the tandem will perform their first production with actors from the largest Bulgarian company. A new verbatim translation of the ancient Greek tragedy has been commissioned especially for the Bulgarian production and will be further adapted by the authors of the play. This will be their first production of Medea.

Donnellan stages iconic texts by leading European writers and playwrights including Shakespeare, Racine and Corneille. He has won four Laurence Olivier Awards, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, and the Stanislavski International Prize. Together with Nick Ormerod, they were awarded the honorary Order of the British Empire.

Nick Ormerod has designed the sets for numerous productions of Cheek by Jowl, and for productions at the National Theatre of Great Britain, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the English National Opera, and the Piccolo Theatre.