HowlRound TV Infrastructure Project in Central and Eastern Europe

Eva Kyselová writes about trends in independent theatre in the Czech Republic.

Edward Einhorn, artistic director of Untitled Theater #61, reflects on the Czech playwright and president Václav Havel’s contribution to theatre.

Tamás Jászay explores independent theatre in Hungary and provides historical context about the state of the art form. 

Iulia Popovici examines the state of independent work in Hungary during dunaPart, an organized showcase of mostly theatre and dance.

Jonathan Mandell on Belarus Free Theatre's Trash Cuisine, playing through May 17 at La Mama ETC in New York City.

Romanian playwright Peca Ştefan discusses a project to research and engage with residents to tell the stories of towns throughout Romania.

In his last installment, Brendan McCall talks with Nicolai Khalezin, one of the founders of Belarus Free Theatre about art, exile, and if theatre has any impact on politics.

In this installment, Brendan explores what happened when he directed some of the plays from the Belarusian Dream Theater at Belarus’ exiled university, resulting in differing perspectives.

In addition to new works by Belarusian playwrights, writers as far-flung as Europe and the United States, Australia and New Zealand, ended up making excellent contributions. The Belarusian Dream Theater project linked playwrights with more than a dozen independent presenting groups in Europe and North America, who donated their time and talents to assemble the collaborators necessary to present as many of the twenty-five new plays as each group wanted.

While I was reaping the benefits of working internationally, my Belarusian friends were living as a theater company in exile. What could I do to help make a difference? What tools could I use, as a theater artist, to break down this silence, censorship, and oppressive regime?

Marcina Zaccaria looks at The Bolshoi Theatre production of Don Quixote performed at the 2014 Lincoln Center Festival.

I felt compelled to act, to do something, to speak up—but how? What could I, an expatriate American living in Scandinavia, do to break the zone of silence surrounding Belarus? While I was enjoying certain freedoms as a theater artist in this affluent Nordic country, my friends and colleagues elsewhere in Europe—writers, directors, journalists, and more—were being imprisoned and threatened.

These personal experiences of Belarus Free Theatre—what they have endured, and what they are willing to sacrifice for what they believe in—humbles me. I cannot imagine being arrested for doing theater, much less being physically threatened by my own government for a play I wrote or acted in or directed. Would I be able to be as brave as Khalezin and Koliada or the other members of their company?

Mark Jackson reports on the "format and the values" he witnessed in Romania at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, which is the third largest theater festival in the world.

Patricia Davis reviews Ambassador Theater's production of Protest, written by the Czech Republic's first president Vaclav Havel, directed by Gail Humphries Mardirosian.

But what interested me in that scene, besides the actual incredible fact that in a Romanian city somebody had decided to build, in 2011, a wall between “white people” and “gypsies,” was the current Romanian political discourse. And I was interested in whom I was addressing too. I realized that I was speaking, just like the current political discourse, to a middle-class of which I was a part.

This series presents perspectives on contemporary theater in Romania. It is curated by Iulia Popovici, who recently concluded a month long ArtsLink residency at HowlRound.

Sibiu International Theatre Festival creates a dialogue from the performances of different cultures. It brings up the questions of how artists perceive and what that means within our work.

The fall of communism in 1989 ledway to the democratisation of art. Ioana Tamas gives the breakdown of how arts management had to be developed to make this transition successful.

Writing about a national theater as far away from the United States as the Romanian one means, in the end, performing exoticism—playing the monkey for the zoo visitors that do expect a monkey. Because, in the end, it’s not about the theater—a specific economic and aesthetic system designed to produce and share artistic work—it’s about how a society, in this case Romanian society, is perceived at an international level.

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

Rounding out his time in Russia, Christopher White recounts the thriving artistic community in Moscow.

Christopher W. White reports on his visit to the provincial city of Omsk, Russia.

Continuing the series, Christopher W. White reflects on his time viewing the strikingly contemporary art in Yekaterinburg