Contemporary Playwriting Festival
April 24-28
In the begining there was a word.
And every word is important for Dramokratija!
The drama is international.
Story is not only drama and drama is not only in the story.
Here anyone can create drama.
Because the drama is alive.
The path to the drama is based on words.
(dramatic pause)
You got the right to drama,
So don't be afraid to spill the ink!
“Dramokratija” is a play reading festival organized by playwrights themselves. This year it is going to be the 4th edition of the festival. “Dramokratija” is a place to read plays, analyze them and present them to public where not the result but the process is most important.
The festival was initiated by Gabrielė Labanauskaitė, a lecturer in Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and screenwriting students she taught to Živilė Zablackaitė, Indrė Bručkutė, Mantas Rimkus, Irena Kunevičiūtė, Sigita Bukantaitė. The team is open and always are keen to have new members. Dramocrats are not only playwrights but also actresses, actors, theatre critics and “Balcony theatre” which has hosted quite a few play readings.
“Dramokratija” not only invites younger people to come to theatre but also brings theatre to people in a various non-theatrical places in Vilnius. Bars, coffee shops, galleries, beauty parlors – any place can host a play reading and delete the fourth wall between the audience and the readers.
„Dramokratija“ takes place in every April and is a week long.
“Dramokratija” has no traditional theatre hierarchy and fosters the idea of people choosing the play not the names or other priorities. Participants of the festival are gathering around the texts playwrights have written and prepare for public readings by rehearsing and analyzing them.
“Dramokratija” festival is a libertine, DIY creative lab and teams have all the freedom and responsibility to divide tasks and roles, to find location for the reading, schedule rehearsal, etc.
This way we not only hope to pursue this tradition but also to induce autonomy of every creative and to establish new platforms for contemporary dramaturgy to grow, nourish and improve.
Every year “Dramokratija” invites to listen to plays which have been written on a specific subject specially for the festival and to discuss it with creators and audiences. The subject of this year is propaganda. “Words like freedom, truth and justice are hard to describe. In an independent country every citizen is able to express her or his opinion, to openly discuss subjects and talk about them. But still, are we able to draw a line what is an opinion and what is propaganda, what is interpretation and what is a lie, what is critique and what is defamation? We are surround by infinite flow of information and it bursts in our lives without asking for our consent,” says Indrė Bručkutė, manager of the festival. “In this year edition we want to talk about, to discuss about how our language, communication, information and views are changing our daily habits and uncontrollable events.”
