Reactor presented a performance of Paper Planes livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Saturday 10 October 2020 at 10 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -5) / 1 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 20:00 CEST (Cluj, UTC +3).
By: Elise Wilk
Directing: Norbert Boda
With: Alex Macavei, Irina Sibef, Robert Danci, Nicole Burlacu, Alexandru Chindriș, Maria Teișanu
Producer: Trupa Țais in partnership with Maratonul de Teatru Independent - Bucharest Fringe
Paper Planes tells the story of six fragile teenagers who are fighting identity troubles, harassment and maternal abandonment. The current and often encountered issue of parents working abroad is one of the themes of the play. The performance studies this phenomenon and how it affects the young people’s mentality, as well as their reactions. Are the characters truly responsible for their apparently erroneous choices, or are they results of exterior circumstances, which we often ignore? The audience is to give the final verdict.
About the author: Elise Wilk
Elise Wilk (n. 1981 Braşov) is a playwright, journalist and theatre translator. In 2008, her first play, “It happened on a Thursday”, won the dramAcum playwriting contest, which aimed at discovering the most important texts of Romanian contemporary dramaturgy. Since then, her plays were staged in theatres from Romania and abroad and translated, until now, into 11 languages. She won the “Irish Embassy Award for an emerging Romanian playwright” (2013, The green cat), the Romanian National Drama Prize (2015, Paper Planes) and the National Monodrama Playwriting Prize (2017, Crocodile). Her plays were also adapted for the radio. In 2017 and 2018, the play Explosive, produced by Radio Romania, won important prizes on three continents: Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Award (2017) , Grand Prix Marulic (2018) and Gold Medal at the New York Festivals (2018).
As a playwright, she was selected in international programs as the Forum of Young European Playwrights from the Wiesbaden Theatre Bienale (2014), Hot Ink at the Lark Theatre in New York (2015) and Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe (2013-2020). Forbes Magazine Romania included her among the young trendsetters of the year (2014) and the magazine Decât o Revistă among the 100 people for Romania’s future (2018). In 2019, she was awarded the “German diaspora personality of the year” by Internationale Medienhilfe Berlin.
About the project:
Focus: Contemporary Playwriting
Eight performances written by eight contemporary Romanian playwrights.
The project aims to gather a selection of representative performances from some of Romania’s young playwrights working today. Despite differing styles, they are all dealing with current issues faced by their mostly young audience: from parental abandonment, the educational system or the complex ways they are being influenced by pop culture, to couple relations and the sense of imminent planetary disaster.
Six of these performances have been produced by the independent theatre Reactor, based in Cluj, Transylvania, while two others are coproductions of four other independent cultural organizations.
This cultural event is co-funded by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN). The project doesn’t necessarily express the views of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of this project, nor for the way its products are being used. That is solely the responsibility of the grant beneficiary.
The project is also co-funded by the Cluj-Napoca City Hall and Local Council.
About Reactor:
Reactor (Reactor – a place for creative experiments - full name) is an independent theatre founded in 2014 and focusing on contemporary dramaturgy, artistic experiment and social themes. It is also encouraging constant artistic development by organizing workshops for theatre professionals as well as the general public, and by offering residencies for emerging artists. Two of the plays included in this series have been written during the Drama 5 playwriting residency happening at Reactor annually since 2016 (All’s Well That Ends and Our Little Centenary).
Reactor is also working towards a more open and reciprocal relation with its audience, by audience developing programs, cultural mediation and community activities. Three of the productions included in this series have been voted by the audience to be staged, after presenting the first 15 minutes of each of them (out of a total of five possibilities): I Like Sushi, Finally the End, and Glory.
Find out more at their website or follow them on Facebook or Instagram.
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