the State Jewish Theatre is launching, as part of its Ticun Olamprogramme, the first edition of the National Competition for Contemporary Jewish Playwriting. The competition, which will be held annually, sets out to discover, develop and stage plays that start from the lives of the many Jewish figures in Romanian history, society and culture.
On the one hand the competition sets out to promote Jewish history and culture and the Jewish community's contribution to local history, society and culture; on the other, to develop contemporary local playwriting on Jewish subjects. The competition is open to anyone holding Romanian citizenship or resident in Romania. Texts submitted must be original, complete plays written in Romanian.
Texts must start from the life story, the biography, of a figure in the history of the Romanian Jewish community. These figures may come from the most varied fields: politics, the sciences, culture and so on. Both well-known and very little-known people may be treated, and figures with a positive public image as readily as controversial ones.
Texts may be documentary, based on subjective experience (dramatisations of diaries, for example) or fictional. They may be signed individually or collectively. Each person may enter one play only.
Three winning plays will be chosen and presented as staged readings at the State Jewish Theatre. The competition's main prize will be a full production of one of the three texts at the TES, together with a playwriting fee. All three winning texts will be developed together with the Ticun Olam project team and with actors from the TES. The text chosen for production will be developed in the course of the work, including during rehearsals, and the author's participation in the whole process of building the production is both provided for and encouraged.
The jury choosing the winning texts will comprise: Maia Morgenstern (actress and manager of the State Jewish Theatre), David Schwartz (director), Andreea Vălean (playwright and director).
The jury will pay particular attention to texts that:
• Start from biographies that have not been dramatised before. A separate document offers an indicative, non-exhaustive list of possible subjects. Treating life stories that have already been turned into plays or film scripts is discouraged (Mihail Sebastian, Max Blecher, Haia Lifșiț and so on)
• Rest on rigorous research and documentation, with attention to the relevant social and political dimensions. An approach that goes beyond individual biography and examines the wider historical, social, political and economic context is encouraged.
• Have a clear, coherent dramaturgical concept and theatrical potential.
Plays should be sent to the email address office@teatrul-evreiesc.ro in non-editable .pdf format or, alternatively, in printed form by post, to the address: Iuliu Barasch street, no. 15, 3rd District, Bucharest. The email or the envelope must contain the title of the play, the author's name and contact details . Texts must be written with Romanian diacritics.
The deadline for submissions is 2 April 2018.