So what has the drive to make work in Romania taught me? I learned that art that has nothing to lose makes for theater that is fierce and always has something to say.

I sit in theaters today and I question who this contemporary audience is and if they find themselves represented onstage. The demographics of the audience are different, theater to theater, town to town; the National Theater attracts older audience members who go to be seen, the independent spaces usually play towards a younger crowd, similar to the Broadway, independent and regional audiences in the US. But the one unifying factor is that the work isn’t made for the audience, it’s made for the artist.

In the middle of the National Theater Festival and National Independent Theater Festival in Bucharest, the divide between idependent theatre and state theatre—artistic freedom and money—becomes clear.

Hannah Wolf introduces her position as an American in Romania, teaching and researching at the University of Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest.