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The 10th edition of the Tour of Unification through Art - The Romanian Theater Bucharest-Iasi-Chisinau will bring on February 1 and 2, 2025 at the NTB two major performances of the Mihai Eminescu National Theater: The Glass Garden and Chirita in Concert in Chisinau. The performance The Glass Garden, directed by Petru Hadarca, is a dramatization by Mariana Onceanu based on Tatiana Tibuleac's novel of the same title, awarded the European Union Prize for Literature - 2019. Taken from an orphanage, named Lastocika ("swallow" transl.), raised by a Russian woman in a Russian-dominated Chisinau, where the court was legion, the orphan grows up in search of love, understanding, landmarks with which she could identify. Her mother tongue, Romanian, keeps her rooted in her cultural-identity and opens the way to her connection with the free world. "The novel The Glass Garden by Tatiana Tibuleac has shaken me deeply and brought me out of my inner comfort. It made me see the world from a different perspective, from several different angles: I felt the bitterness in the mouth of an orphaned child, a woman's fears about her femininity, the emptiness in the soul of a man desperately searching for a sense of identity. This confession, which sometimes bursts with rage and cruelty, sometimes turns into a lyrical meditation, sometimes meticulously cuts the thread in four or bites ironically, makes you wonder by what miracle an abandoned and unloved child, raped in his teenage years, becomes a good person who loves and gives love?", says the director of the performance, Petru Hadarca. The second performance to be presented by the TNME on February 2, 2025 is Chirita in concert in Chisinau, a musical staged by Ada Milea, on a script inspired by the plays of Vasile Alecsandri and Matei Millo. TNME's Chirita is seductive, charismatic and, of course, spirited and fiery, ready to eat fire for the sake of her priceless offspring: the funky Gulita - "bearded child", Aristita and Calipsita - "my little girls, plucked from the stars", the flamboyant and charming Luluta, trapped in a golden cage, and the whole retinue of the famous play: The Charlatans - surprising in their tricks, Conu Barzoi - a candidate for mayor, the exciting Leonas, in a parade of unexpected disguises, and a surprise character - Vasile Alecsandri, who, imperturbable, watches from the pedestal, the accelerated unfolding of the actions. TNME has chosen Vasile Alecsandri's plays because he is one of the few classic authors who, along with Mihai Eminescu and Ion Creanga, was allowed by censors in libraries and school textbooks during the Soviet period. And Chirița is the comic and jovial character, but also subversive at the same time, because it was she who provided the connection between the two sides of the Prut, when Soviet ideology was instrumentalizing the narrative of two literatures and two languages. The Romanian Theater Bucharest-Iasi-Chisinau Unification Tour is a long-standing project initiated by the late Ion Caramitru, who aimed to unite the two banks of the Prut through theater. The event takes place annually in January, around the celebration of the Unification of the Principalities Day, and includes performances in Bucharest and Iasi, followed by a return tour to Chisinau, organized around March 27, the anniversary of the Unification of Bassarabia with Romania. The project is supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute and its representation in Chisinau, the Romanian Cultural Institute "Mihai Eminescu". Both performances will take place in the "Ion Caramitru" Hall of the NTB, starting at 7 pm. Tickets for the two unique performances are on sale on tnb.ro and at the Ticket Office of the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theatre in Bucharest. Photography Florin Ghioca   Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu 

Exclusive taxi service for NTB spectators The "I.L. Caragiale" National Theater in Bucharest and Meridian Taxi are delighted to welcome the spectators with an initiative aimed to bring a touch of comfort and safety to winter evenings. From January 22, 2025, right after the end of the performance of "The Hanged Man's Forest" (around 10.40 pm), a specially arranged station in the theater's parking lot will offer culture lovers an easy way to continue their evening in peace, without worrying about the cold or the dark. This partnership is dedicated to all those who believe that the magic of performance should not stop when the curtain comes down. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of spectators who attend NTB performances and who often face mobility problems due to traffic jams, both at peak hours (coinciding with the starting times of NTB performances) and at late hours when some performances end, the taxi company Meridian TAXI has recently signed a partnership protocol with the NTB under which it offers an exclusive service with premium advantages of access to taxi on-demand services to NTB spectators, both when they leave the NTB and when they arrive for performances or other events at the NTB: fast order pick-up, immediate access to the pick-up location (located within the perimeter of the NTB parking lot), payment of the ride with POS, synchronization of the flow of available cars with the number of spectators, payment by card in the mobile app, ordering via Whatsapp and Instagram, etc. Thus, based on a QR code displayed in the NTB foyers, spectators will be able to initiate by phone the order of a taxi from the Meridian fleet, immediately receiving the necessary details for the trip, and will be directed to the customer arrival/ pick-up points located visibly in the NTB's outdoor parking lot. Meridian will automatically take NTB customers' orders, directing taxis with priority to this area specially set up by NTB in its own parking lot, hereinafter referred to as the "customer pick-up/arrival point" Upon arrival of the taxis, customers will be validated by the drivers on the basis of the messages received by phone and transported to the desired destinations. Spectators who will use the services of the Meridian taxi fleet to come to the performances and events taking place at the NTB will also benefit from various advantages: payment of the fare by mobile POS, compliance with the mandatory premium equipment conditions of the taxis that will serve this destination. Meridian will offer discounts or bonuses to NTB spectators: for every 4 rides to the National Theater, Meridian will offer a 40 lei voucher (Conditions of use: rides must be ordered from the Meridian application; a user can receive a maximum of 2 vouchers in a calendar month). Taxi to the theater! - here is a slogan about to become reality...   Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu 

The jukebox musical Here we are!, a co-production of 2024 Touchstone Creative and the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theatre in Bucharest, is a new musical show on the NTB's bill, performed by young actors Laura Gabriela Oana, Andreea Gaica, Dragos Ionita, Andrei Marcuta and Andrei Dutu, accompanied by the orchestrations of Bogdan Morosanu (Rockabella). Staged this summer in Bucharest, in a national premiere, at the 10th anniversary of the underground band Rockabella, and presented at the Sala Media of the NTB, "Here We Are!" returns to the stage of the National Theater in Bucharest after a national mini-tour. Written by Andrei Radu and Natalie Ester on music and lyrics by Teodorei Morosanu (Rockabella), directed by Natalie Ester and Ionut Grama, this performance, produced by Touchstone Creative in partnership with the "I L. Caragiale" National Theatre in Bucharest, was co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.   The script of the show, which aims to artistically explore through musicals the phenomenon of youth migration, is based on real facts and experiences shared by young people who took part in the storytelling workshops "Until Far Away" of the project, developed by playwright Ana Cucu-Popescu and director Natalie Ester. The musical "Here We Are!" returns to the stage and continues its way to the hearts of the public with its inclusion in the repertoire of the current season of the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theater in Bucharest. The first performances to which we invite you, this time at the Sala Atelier, are scheduled on January 18 and 23, 2025, from 19:00. The new performance at the Bucharest National Theatre is a bittersweet song of young people who have gone abroad, of those who want to cross the border and of the stories that have carried them on their way to maturity. The end of 12th grade. We experience, with the young performers, the joy of prom. We go through the excitement of the high school exam, then forget our worries on the sand of the party in Vama Veche. We take a deep breath, look into the eyes of our friends and vow never to part. Then we hit the road. And passions, ambitions, potential, families, 'the system' - or all of them together - push us to different corners of the world... And promises once made on a beach remain a footnote in a diary: 'Someone find our way back'. Between rock chords, fulfilled dreams and missed chances, five "No Answer" friends think they are "Invulnerable" and raise the "White Flag" in the hope of reliving an encore together. Audiences will find life stories inspired by true events and fans of local rock music will enjoy new interpretations of songs from the albums "Clarobscur" and "Invulnerabili". The creative team also included Ioana Pashca (scenography), Filip Stoica (choreography), Georgiana Mototolea (vocal preparation), Andrei Délczeg (lighting design), Alexandra Suditu (production assistant), Bianca Archip (lighting operator) and Alina Epingeac (theaterlogist). Tickets are available at the NTB box office and online at www.tnb.ro   Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu 

The new year begins at “I.L. Caragiale” National Theatre with a premiere directed by Felix Alexa: Out at Sea by Slawomir Mrożek, on the stage of the Pictura Hall. With an outstanding cast and an atmosphere of extraordinary plasticity created by set designers Stefan Caragiu and Liliana Cenean, director Felix Alexa reimagines Slawomir Mrożek's black comedy from the 1960s for today's audiences. Perhaps the best one-act play by one of the most important playwrights of the 20th century, Out at Sea is a political parable and at the same time an absurdist comedy with a disturbing message behind the humor. Although written in the midst of Soviet censorship, the play is disturbingly topical and seems straight out of today's headlines.4 The play follows the fate of three starving shipwrecked people trying to find a "democratic" way to decide which of them will be eaten by the other two. The arguments become more and more demagogic, the bullying and cajoling more and more intense, until the interventions of a passing postman and an old servant push the action to a frightening climax. "Out at Sea" condemns, through the cynicism, absurdity and satire so characteristic of Mrożek's writing, the Machiavellian brutality of political power at all times. "What could be more topical today than "man being eaten by man", as a character in Mrożek's play puts it? I would say that today we are revolving around the nuances of this cannibalistic action, in all its senses. A brilliantly clever text, "Out at Sea" now becomes much more exciting, dangerous and acute than when it was written.  For me, this performance is a wake-up call to the moral degradation of society. Beneath the play's subtle, dark and piercing humor lie the painful truths of our daily lives.   And yet, how far can human beings go with their lack of scruples when "hunger" becomes the main element? Far enough for 'Out at Sea', this gem of absurdist theater, to become cruelly realistic." Felix Alexa The first performances will take place on January 17, 18 and 19, 2025, at 19.00, and the official premiere on January 24, at 7 pm.   Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu