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ETC International Theatre Conference 'Touchpoints: Artistic Freedom, AI & Collaborative Futures in Theatre', hosted by Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia/Bulgaria, from 5-8 November 2026.
Please note that the website will be continuously updated with confirmed speakers and the full conference programme over the course of the coming weeks.
About the Conference Practical Information
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Thursday 5 November 2026
15:30-19:00 Welcome Desk
15:30-16:30 Board Meeting
17:00-17:30 Buddy Meeting
For new Member Theatres and designated 'Buddies’.
17:30-18:45 Opening Reception
Join us for the kick-off of the event and opening speeches, as we set the stage for an engaging and inspiring series of sessions, discussions and performances.
19:00-21:30 Performance: Little England
Main Stage, Ivan Vazov National Theatre
Friday 6 November 2026
09:00-19:00 Welcome Desk
09:30-09:40 Welcome
09:40-10:00 Keynote
10:00-11:30 Panel 1: Theatre in a Changing Europe: Between National Responsibility and European Collaboration
- Regional Networks and Collaborative Futures
- National Theatre and Cultural Responsibility
11:30-11:35 Group Photo
11:35-12:00 Coffee Break
12:00-13:00 Deep Dive Roundtables
- Table 1 – Artistic Freedom in an Age of Political Distrust
How can theatres protect artistic freedom while building trust with public institutions, funders and audiences, and possibly serve as spaces for creating bridges between different perspectives? - Table 2 – The Role of Theatre as Public Spaces
How can public theatres strengthen their role as democratic spaces by making their spaces more accessible to audiences, encouraging participation and creating opportunities for dialogue in the community, in times when they are asked to diversify their income strands? - Table 3 - From Networks to Solidarity: What Can European Theatres Do Together?
How can regional and European theatre networks move beyond exchange and create meaningful solidarity in times of political and economic uncertainty? - Table 4 – The Theatre of the Future: Public Institution or Flexible Cultural Platform?
What should theatre become in order to remain resilient, relevant and publicly supported in the next decade?
13:00-14:00 Networking Lunch Break
14:00-14:20 ETC Theatre Present: Successful Collaborations
14:20-14:40 The Road Ahead: Break the Mould - Collaboration with ETC in the Next Six Months
What is coming up at ETC over the next six months? Discover exclusive possibilities for funding, artistic innovation and new European collaborations as part of ETC's EU-funded programme, BREAK THE MOULD. Featuring the launch of new grants and training across our programmes on digital, diverse, sustainable and next generation theatre.
14:40-15:30 General Assembly
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
16:00-17:00 Split Sessions
- DoSel - Drama of Smaller European Languages Workshop
- Accessibility Workshop
- Leading with Care Workshop
- Collaboration Speed Meeting
17:30-19:45 Performance: Tam
Studio Stage, Ivan Vazov National Theatre
19:00-22:00 Performance: The Physics of Sorrow
Main Stage, Ivan Vazov National Theatre
22:00 Late Night Meeting Point: Have a Drink with Local Artists
Saturday 7 November 2026
10:00-10:05 Welcome
10:05-10:20 Keynote
10:20-11:30 Panel 2: How AI Is Changing the Way We Make Theatre
11:30-12:00 Coffee Break
12:00-13:00 Deep Dive Roundtables
- AI Behind the Curtain: Rethinking Theatre Management:
Can AI make theatres more efficient without making them less human? - Audiences in the Age of Algorithms:
How can theatres use AI to reach and understand audiences without reducing people to data and predictions? - The AI Stage: Creativity, Authorship and Artistic Integrity:
Where should theatres draw the line between using AI as a creative tool and allowing AI to shape the artistic work itself? - Who Owns the Future? AI, Labour and the Theatre Ecosystem:
How will AI change the roles, skills and value of the people who make theatre — and how should theatres respond?
13:00-14:30 Networking Lunch
14:30-17:00 Laboratories
- Digital Theatre
- Leading with Artistic Courage
- Future Economics
- European Actors
17:15-17:30 Closing
19:00-20:30 Performance: Pieces of a Woman
Chamber Stage, Ivan Vazov National Theatre
Accessibility Alert: As the building of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre is a cultural heritage monument, no architectural solution has so far been found that would allow access to the theatre’s Chamber Hall for people with reduced mobility. The theatre’s team apologises for the inconvenience caused.
19:00-20:30 Performance: Convenience Store Woman
Studio Stage, Ivan Vazov National Theatre
20:45-22:30 Joint Dinner at Spaghetti Kitchen
Sunday 8 November
11:00-12:00 Activity
19:00-20:00 Performance: Medea
Main Stage, Ivan Vazov National Theatre
Little England
Stage adaptation based on the novel of the same name by Ioanna Karystiani.
Description:
Greece.
Two men. One island.
Between two wars.
One house. Two floors.
Two sisters. One secret.
A shattering epic.
A story about the furious courage with which you feed death, yet refuse to let it separate you from the one you have loved.
*
The performance “Little England” is the world theatrical premiere of the novel by Ioanna Karystiani.
The book won the Greek National Literary Award in 1998.
Information:
Genre: Drama
English subtitles
Duration: 02h30
Premiere: 15 - 16 April 2026
Production Team:
Author: Ioanna Karystiani
Director and author of the stage adaptation: Diana Dobreva
Dramatization: Alexander Sekulov
Translation: Emanuel Mutafov
Set and Costume Design: Marina Raychinova
Composer: Petya Dimanova
Choreographer: Olga Pango
Video Design: Petko Tanchev
Cast: Alexandra Svilenova, Ana Papadopoulou, Aneta Ivanova, Boryana Manoilova, Vasil Draganov, Veselin Mezekliev, Dimitar Nikolov, Zhana Rasheva, Ivan Nikolov, Irina Miteva, Konstantin Elenkov, Kremena Slavcheva, Lyubomir Petkashev, Stefan Kushev
TAM
Description:
Island made of pillows
TAM is a performance-installation that explores how a sense of shelter can be created - not as a physical location, but as a shared state of being. A place that exists only as long as we are together. Bodies, voices, and presences weave into a common field of attention. TAM is not only a physical or imaginary space, but also an emotional and psychological refuge.
There is no safe place, no separation between stage and audience - only shared air, collective silence, and movement passing from one body to another. Light dissolves and drifts. Sound follows gesture. The voice merges with the material of the space. Every moment is different - the place changes, and we change with it.
TAM is an invitation to be. Simply to be present.
The concept of the locus amoenus - “the pleasant place” - carries universal meaning, reflecting the deeply rooted human need for a space of safety and rest for both body and mind. It is a refuge from the outer world, where we can withdraw in order to recover and reconnect - with ourselves and with others on a deeper level. It is a fragile, intimate space, easily disturbed, yet filled with the quiet intensity of shared moments we create within it.
The artistic concept of the project explores locus amoenus in the context of today’s world of dissonance. Its aim is to create an artistic space that not only allows but also invites the audience to examine their own notions of refuge, safety, and comfort - and how such a psycho-emotional state can be achieved and sustained.
Where lies the balance between reality and ideal - between the desire for utopian peace and the surrounding world?
What is your locus amoenus?
How can we build these places TAM, together?
Information:
Genre: Performance-installation
English libretto provided at the beginning of the performance
Duration: 01h15m
Premiere: November 20 and 21, 2025
Production Team:
Concept and Choreography: Deyan Georgiev
Assistant Choreographer: Bianca Braunesberger
Set and Costume Design: Gabriela Kurdjilova
Music: Petya Dimanova and Bozhidar Vasilev – Trombobby
Lighting Design: Viktor Georgiev
Visual Environment: Petko Tanchev
Cast: Snezhina Petrova, Yavor Valkanov, Kaloyan Trifonov, Vasilena Kaneva
The Physics of Sorrow
Based on the novel of the same name by Georgi Gospodinov.
Description:
For the second time, one of the most compelling figures in European theatre, Slovenian director Jernej Lorenci, will work with the company of the National Theatre. Following his production of Orpheus, Lorenci returns to Sofia to adapt Georgi Gospodinov’s novel The Physics of Sorrow (2012) for the stage. The novel has been translated into more than 20 languages. It won the prestigious international Jan Michalski Prize in 2016 and was shortlisted for the PEN American Award for translated literature, the Premio Strega Europeo, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Award, the Gregor von Rezzori Prize and others. According to The New Yorker, Georgi’s true quest in The Physics of Sorrow is to find a way to live with sorrow, allowing it to become a source of empathy and beneficial hesitation. The short animated film The Physics of Sorrow, based on the novel and directed by Theodore Ushev, received numerous international awards and was shortlisted for the Academy Awards in 2020.
In the novel, time does not follow a chronological order; it is fragmented, cyclical and experienced from within. The Physics of Sorrow explores the ways in which human beings experience time, history and loss through memory, empathy and storytelling. In Saint Augustine’s understanding, time exists above all within human consciousness rather than as an objective flow. Past, present and future coexist; memory alters and bends time, while the present remains fragile and fleeting.
The book is structured as an archive, a suitcase or a labyrinth of memories. Personal recollections intertwine with family history and collective memory. Remembering becomes an ethical act—an attempt to preserve what would otherwise disappear. Memory is not a precise record of facts, but something unstable, fragmented and deeply emotional. Sorrow is not a weakness, but a form of knowledge—a quiet resistance to a present day obsessed with the pursuit of happiness at any cost. The novel is an elegy for everything that is gradually disappearing. Writing becomes an attempt to save what is on the verge of being lost forever.
Jernej Lorenci’s production creates a theatrical adaptation that transforms this literary labyrinth into a living stage world of memories, stories, images, voices and bodies. At its centre is the human being, trapped within their own labyrinth of past and future, fears and hopes, loneliness and longing for closeness. The myth of the Minotaur intertwines with personal and collective memory, while individual human destinies form a shared narrative about generations, lost time and our ability to feel another person’s pain as our own.
Through his deeply emotional and ritualistic theatrical language, Jernej Lorenci creates a production in which the ensemble becomes a single organism and the stage becomes a space for shared experience. Through music, personal stories, memories and collective presence, the actors search for what connects us beyond our differences: our shared humanity and our common present. A production about empathy as a form of resistance. About the human need to preserve the traces of the past and to dream the future together.
Because, as Georgi Gospodinov reminds us, after the end of the world, perhaps the most important thing is to open our arms and embrace one another.
Information:
English subtitles
Duration: 3 h with an intermission
Premiere: 6 and 7 October 2026
Production Team:
Author: Georgi Gospodinov
Director: Jernej Lorenci
Dramatisation: Dino Pešut and Jernej Lorenci
Set Designer: Branko Hojnik
Costume Designer: Belinda Radulović
Composer and Assistant Director: Žiga Hren
Cast: Albena Stavreva, Alexander Tonev, Aneta Ivanova, Valentin Ganev, Vasilena Vincenzo, Darina Radeva, Dimitar Nikolov, Veselin Mezekliev, Konstantin Elenkov, Paraskeva Djukelova, Radena Valkanova, Stelian Radev, Teodora Duhovnikova, Hristo Petkov
Pieces of a Woman
by Kata Weber
Description:
Born from playwright Kata Weber’s personal experience of trauma, Pieces of a Woman transforms intimate suffering into a powerful exploration of grief, love and survival. Chris Sharkov’s production examines how loss reshapes relationships and confronts some of the defining tensions of contemporary life: fear of the Other, the difficulty of living with pain, and the fragile, contradictory forms of love. Performed by a compelling ensemble from the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, the production places emotional truth and human vulnerability at its centre.
Information:
Genre: Drama
English subtitles
Duration: 01 h 30 m
Age restriction: Not suitable for persons under 18
Premiere: 7th and 8th of October 2022
Production Team:
Author: Kata Weber
Translation: Pravda Spasova
Director: Kris Sharkov
Set Design and Costumes: Nikola Toromanov
Music: Emilian Gatsov-Elbi
Cast: Radina Kardzhilova, Maria Kavardzhikova, Stefan Valdobrev, Martin Dimitrov, Ana Papadopulu, Tsvetan Aleksiev, Zhaklin Daskalova, Albena Stavreva
Convenience Store Woman
Stage adaptation based on the novel of the same name by Sayaka Murata.
Description:
Keiko has been strange since childhood. Every action of hers is governed by her own logic, which, however, does not fit into the overall model of society, whose rules she cannot comprehend. This is why she decides to withdraw into herself and imitate the behavior of those around her in order to be "normal" rather than a "foreign body." At age 18, she starts working in a konbini (convenience store) and discovers her earthly paradise. Konbinis are stores in Japan where you can find everything 24/7. They look the same everywhere; employees wear uniforms, and the service is standardized, using rehearsed and masterfully practiced phrases for customers. In this perfectly functioning mechanism, Keiko speaks and acts exactly as expected of her. To be a cog in the konbini machine is not just a means of survival for her, but an ideal of existence.
"Many themes are visible in Sayaka Murata's novel. The entire mechanism of human existence is mirrored in a 'foreign body.' And the konbini—the beating heart of buying and selling—paradoxically turns into a kind of Zen garden. All of this is presented with lightness, absurdity, and humor," says Mariy Rosen.
Information:
Genre: Dramatic comedy
English subtitles
Duration: 01 h 30 m
Age restriction: Not suitable for persons under 12
Premiere: January 31 and February 1, 2026
Production Team:
Author: Sayaka Murata
Translation: Margarita Ukegawa
Dramatization and direction: Mariy Rosen
Scenography and costumes: Petya Boyukova
Music and soundscape: Alexander Evtimov-Shamancheto
Movement and choreography: Yanitsa Atanasova
Cast: Boryana Yovcheva, Alexander Tonev
Medea
by Euripides
Description:
The name Medea can conjure up the image of a screaming murderous monster from antiquity. But Euripides brings Medea’s experience uncomfortably close to home. His Medea is a very real woman facing what to her seems an intolerable predicament. She fears she is facing total humiliation, which to her amounts to annihilation. Her solution is extreme but not unheard of in today's world. We think what she does is overly emotional and irrational, but in fact the appalling deed is the result of the application of strict logic. Maybe this is a timely warning to our world increasingly obsessed, as it is, with algorithms of efficiency and artificial intelligence, just to hang onto our common sense and ordinary decency at all costs. Logic is a good servant but a bad master.
Information:
Genre: Tragedy
English subtitles
Duration: 01 h 00 m
Premiere: 9, 10, 11 and 12 September 2024
The audience remains standing throughout the entire performance, positioned on the stage itself, while the actors perform among them.
Production Team:
Author: Euripides
Translation: Dorothea Tabakova
Director: Declan Donnellan
Designer: Nick Ormerod
Movement Director: Rosen Mihailov
Composer: Julian Stoichkov
Light designer: Ilya Pashnin
Cast: Radina Kardzhilova, Velislav Pavlov, Valentin Ganev, Asen Dankov, Yavor Valkanov, Stelian Radev, Vyara Tabakova, Radena Valkanova, Joreta Nikolova, Stafania Koleva, Elena Ivanova, Nadya Keranova, Ana Papadopolu and children Nikola Sarzhev and Petar Sardzhev (doubles Boris Petrishki and Boyan Chelebiev)