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The Minifest international festival of performances for kids and young adults is one of the oldest international festivals of performances for kids and adults in the modern history of Russia. Established in 1989 at the initiative of Vladimir Chigishev (the main stage director of the Rostov Youth Theater from 1985 to 2005) and with his active participation, the festival has become a tradition now and is held for the 13th time.
This year the festival participants are theaters from Russia, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Croatia, Estonia, France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Finland and China and neighboring countries.
The theater from Dortmund will show Tschick, a performance based on Wolfgang Herrndorf’s novel (Why we Took the Car in English translation) about friendship between a German boy and his age-mate from a family of Russian immigrants. Another German theater – An der Parkaue, a youth theater from Berlin – will tell a story about a teenage girl, whose life turned into a struggle for her own place in her family.
Performances targeted at adults will be a true treat for Rostov spectators. Theatrical play with space and reality will open up in the performance of the Croatian theater, Kazalište Marina Držića, based on the play Clothing The Naked by Luigi Pirandello.
The Czech and Finnish theater company KREPSKO will offer a psychological dive into the world of familiar characters or mysterious linguistic buildups.
The festival is not just performances: during the Thirteenth Minifest, the Rostov Youth Theater will host a meet-the-artist event with the renowned stage director and teacher Grigory Kozlov, who is a laureate of the State Award of the Russian Federation and the art director of the Masterskaya Theater in St Petersburg. A master class will be arranged, as well as table reading of a play by the famous translator Olga Varshaver. An exposition on the history of Minifest festivals will be opened in the theater’s lobby.
