“QUARTET” THEATRE ASSOCIATION

The “Quartet” Association was founded by four theatres: Theatre du Rictus, (Nantes, France) and Theatre Quartier Libre (Ancenis, France), Géza Gárdonyi Theatre  (Eger (Gárdonyi Géza Színház), Hungary); Serbian National Theatre, Novi Sad, Serbia; and the Western Bohemian Theatre (Západočeské divadlo)  (Cheb, the Czech Republic). The main idea which engendered the Association is based on the conviction that theatres originating from different theatrical traditions and functioning after different production models (in this case as a theatrical troupe and/or municipal, regional and national theatre) can collaborate on a number of levels, and even jointly organise a theatre festival.
Each of the mentioned theatres will stage a production on the same topic – Visions of Europe, which is actually also the title of the Festival. The shows will be staged in approximately the same production conditions so that they can be presented in a similar way within the four Festival editions – in Novi Sad, Eger, Ancenis and Cheb. Each theatre is to produce a show after a text written by a domestic playwright staged by a domestic director. The first cycle, with four Festival editions, first of which will be held at the Serbian National Theatre on 30 October 2008, will last until March 2010.
The separate festival editions will offer each of the theatres an opportunity to present their own visions of Europe, test the reaches of their productions in front of a foreign audience, weigh their own production in the context of different production models, but also to gain different theatrical experiences. Each Festival edition will be prepared and realised with participation of a team of producers and managers delegated
from all Association Members.
The “Quartet” Association has applied with this project to the European Commission, and after a long and extensive procedure it was awarded fifty per cent of the funds planned for the realisation of all the project components. At the same time, the amount awarded is the highest possible sum that the European Commission grants. The remaining fifty per cent of the funds necessary for the project realisation will be provided by the Association Members. So, the Serbian National Theatre has become the first national institution in Serbia to receive a European Commission grant.
Each of the four editions of the Visions of Europe Festival will include elaborated ancillary programmes – public readings of plays selected to represent the dramatic literature of each country member – forums, lectures, dialogues with theatre audience, photo exhibitions which will show the hosts how foreigners perceive their town…
All four plays will be performed in the Festival instalments in the towns of the Association members at the agreed time table:

Novi Sad (Serbia) - from 23 October to 4 November 2008;
Cheb (the Czech Republic) – from 21 to 29 March 2009;
Eger (Hungary) – from 27 to 31 October 2009;
Ancenis (France) – from 10 to 14 March 2010.

A separate programme within the Festival will be the Workshop.
For the duration of each Festival instalment will be organised workshops led by Laurent Maindron, theatre director from France, and the participants will be two actors from each country member, and three dramaturges (Peter Jonas (Eger), Aleksandar Milosavljević from SNT and a dramaturge from Cheb), together with Marina Sremac, a set and costume designer from SNT.
Aim of the Workshop is to create a special play.
Since the four Festival instalments will not provide sufficient time to complete the Workshop project, two additional (special) time slots were created to take place in Ancenis (from 13 to 19 June 2009) and Novi Sad (for seven days, at the beginning of September 2010).  It has been anticipated that the final results of the Workshop project will be presented as an ancillary programme of BITEF Festival in Belgrade (end of September, beginning of October 2010, immediately after the Workshop in Novi Sad is completed). Within each of the four „Quartet” Festival instalments will be organised special ancillary programmes, and their aim is to better and more completely present not only the Association members, but also countries, cultures and theatre traditions from which the members originate. In order to accomplish this goal, it is essential that seven days prior to beginning of each Festival instalment two producers from each guest theatre, and also a photographer from one of the Association members come to the host town. The producers would take part in the preparations for the Festival and the Workshop, and the photographer would, from an artistic point of view, prepare his vision of the host town. His works will be exhibited throughout the Festival, and they will also form a part of a large exhibition where best photographs by all four photographers will be displayed. This exhibition will be organised at the end of the Festival cycle.