Local plays dominate state theaters' repertorie in 2014

Seventy percent of plays that will be performed by companies of the Turkish State Theaters (DT) in the next theater season will be pieces penned by Turkish playwrights, according to a recent decision by the DT General Directorate. The new general director of the DT, Mustafa Kurt, who replaced former director Lemi Bilgin following his removal from the post at the end of May, has been holding meetings with the theater directors of regional state theaters to discuss the repertoire for the next season. The plays that will be staged next season were chosen during the meetings, in addition to deciding if the other plays that were met by great interest by the audience in previous seasons would also be included in the new repertoire. In former seasons, foreign plays were in the majority, comprising 60 percent of the pieces in the repertoire. With the new decisions taken in the meetings, the situation will be reversed and most of the local plays will be those penned by young and new playwrights. The next season will open with local plays as well. The directorate has also decided to launch a theater festival titled "Uluslararasi Balkan Ulkeleri Festivali" (international Balkan countries festival) in the northwestern province of Bursa, where Ottoman statesman-playwright Ahmet Vefik Pasa ordered the construction of a theater in the city and paved the way for the staging of plays by Moliere which he translated into Ottoman Turkish. The festival, which will see the attendance of only Balkan countries in its first year, is set to kick off its first edition in the spring of 2014. The recent decisions of the directorate are expected to be shared with the public in the upcoming days.