New theatre project showcases foreign plays to Georgian audience

On June 6 Rustaveli Theatre and Tumanishvili Theatre Foundation awarded the nominees for the best Georgian translation of a foreign play. The joint project of Rustaveli theatre and Mikheil Tumanishvili Theatric Art Development Foundation gave young translators an opportunity to translate their favorite plays from any foreign language in Georgian and get the chance to become part of the theatrical world. The contest was officially announced on December 27, 2010 when the potential participants learned the final deadline for proving their skills.

From April 1 to 10 the participants provided their works to the organizers and the closed discussions began. On the one hand the number and names of the jury was strictly confident until the end of the contest, while the members of the jury also demanded close discussions thus the names of the young translators were also top secret for the jury. Manana Antadze, Literary Manager of Mikheil Tumanishvili Theatre and the Director of Tumanishvili foundation who has been holding the similar contests from 2006 welcomed the new bright choices and the fresh language of the participants.

“The idea of starting New Dramaturgy contests is aimed at providing theatres with the best plays. Unfortunately our theatres lack plays nowadays and the directors don’t have a wide choice of dramaturgy, that’s why we have started literary contests encouraging the young translators,” Antadze told The Messenger. This time the theatric contest had three winners instead of one. As Manana Antadze explained to the guests all the translations the competent jury had received were very interesting and smart.

Davit Gabunia, Nino Burduli and Rusudan Matiashvili received financial grants and their plays will be staged at Rustaveli Theatre for the new theatrical season. Thanking Antadze for her great merit in development of theatric traditions Robert Sturua Artistic Director of Rustaveli Theatre welcomed the fact that the translators have a wonderful opportunity to translate plays or books from the original language.

Nino Kharatishvili, one of the writers whose German play was translated by actress Nino Burduli, attended the award ceremony at Rustaveli Theatre’s VIP Hall. Moreover the Georgian writer living in Germany had her own literary evening organized by Tbilisi City Hall with the support of the Georgian Cultural Forum in Germany at the small hall of Rustaveli Theatre. “Nino is very successful in Germany but unfortunately hardly anyone knows her in Georgia. We had been negotiating with her about her arrival and she found a couple of days to visit her homeland. I think we have managed to show her a very special and pleasant evening with the support of musicians Ia Chantladze and Roma Rtskhiladze,” Neka Sebiskveradze Deputy Director of Tbilisi City Hall's of Social Services and Culture Department told us.

Professor Manana Tandashvili, the Chairwoman of Frankfurt’s Literature Salon Evterpe shared lots of interesting details about Nino’s life to the audience. Awarding the young successful dramaturge and director with the Integration Award (established by the Georgian Cultural Forum in 2008 to highlight Georgia’s cultural integration to Europe) Nino Kharatishvili has proved that talented people can always find their place in the international community.