site.btaIvan Vazov National Theatre to Stage 13 Premieres in Upcoming Season

The Ivan Vazov National Theatre will present thirteen premieres in the upcoming season, the theatre said on Thursday.

The director of the troupe and National Theatre General Manager, Vasil Vasilev, said that when the team was trying to define the focus of the season, they had initially considered limiting it to a Balkan theme, but after a careful analysis it turned out that the repertoire spanned three continents, North America, Europe and Asia.

One of the highlights is a production by Croatian director Ivica Buljan, who will stage the classic The Glembays. The play by renowned playwright Miroslav Krleza will be presented in a new translation by Rusanka Lyapova, created specifically for the National Theatre.

Also upcoming is a project by director Slobodan Unkovski from the Republic of North Macedonia, who has already held casting sessions with the theatre’s largest troupe for a production of The Miser, based on the famous play by Moliere. The comedy is expected to be the largest-scale production of the season, featuring several generations of actors.

At the beginning of 2026, director Diana Dobreva will begin rehearsals for Little England, a stage adaptation of the novel of the same name by Greek author Ioanna Karystiani.
By the end of the calendar year, the National Theatre will participate in ten festivals in Bulgaria and across Europe. The international tour of the play Hague continues in November with an appearance at the Temporada Alta festival in Girona, Spain.

A performance is also expected in Ljubljana, Slovenia, at the beginning of next year. Negotiations are underway for a guest performance of Robert Wilson’s The Tempest in Vienna, Austria, at the Wiener Festwochen, as well as in Beijing, China, and at a festival in Germany. Alongside the tours and guest appearances, the National Theatre also reports ongoing participation in the European projects DoSEL and Prospero New. At the end of 2026, the National Theatre will host the conference of the European Theatre Convention.