New Theater Manifesto

The New Theater is a temple of art, a scientific laboratory for the study of human souls, a moral, spiritual department of society. And the New Theater is a Holiday. We see in the theater a way and a way of spiritual development of a person. Theater is a synthesis of all existing possibilities for self-improvement of a person and the development of his three hypostases: body, soul and spirit.

Modern theater is gradually freed from the experience of being in a single tradition. Modern theater should be enriched with new knowledge, new aesthetics. The language of the theater should become richer and more varied. Today, the theater, in its best examples, strives for the synthesis of new trends of art in intellectual prose, philosophy, poetry, borrows in its inner work the vast spiritual experience of the East. Theater today can rely not only on the existing knowledge systems of recognized theater masters: K. Stanislavsky and M. Chekhov, V. Meyerhold and L. Kurbas, E. Grotovsky and A. Vasiliev, but also on ancient spiritual knowledge and practices of the East and Christianity.

Our theater and its creative process provides for going beyond the limits – change, transformation, upward movement, a way of spiritualization. At its core, it can synthesize three directions: psychological, playful, poetic, intellectual and mystical theater. The theater gives a unique opportunity to achieve spiritual harmony, it preserves the magic and primordial joy that is so lacking in our everyday life. Our theater is a creative laboratory, created especially for the Man. Our theater is a conversation about a Man, with all his amazing abilities, which we want to demonstrate to the viewer in order to try to wake him up from his usual everyday sleep. Our theater is also a conversation about the relationship of a person with the Almighty.

The basis of our theater will be actors with higher theatrical education, who are united by a love for the theater, art, and the creative realization of abilities.

The birth and formation of the Theater

The New Theater was born on February 25, 2012 with the play “The Thirteenth Apostle” – on the day of the 125th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Ukrainian director-innovator Les Kurbas.

Fate connected the New Theater with Les Kurbas not by chance. Les is the director who, having received his education in Europe, came to create in Ukraine a new theater, a live theater, poetic, figurative, in a new artistic style. His method of “reinvention” could have become a new theatrical system in Ukraine and the world along with Stanislavsky’s system, if not for the repressions and his death in Solovki. It was on the theatrical system that Kurbasa defended her master’s degree as a director in Kyiv at the Theater University. Karpenko-Kary and our artistic director of the New Theater Svetlana Lebedeva.

During the first year of creative work, the New Theater prepared 7 premieres. It was a lot of work to create your own repertoire and your acting team. The following year – 4 premieres were released. In addition, in 2013 the theater took part in the international theater festival “Theater. Chekhov. Yalta”, where our performance “Medea” became the laureate of the festival.

In 2014, the theater prepared 2 premieres, one of which, The Taming of the Shrew, became the most voluminous in terms of the number of actors involved in it (15) and was timed to coincide with the 450th anniversary of the birth of the great playwright William Shakespeare.

On September 11, 2014, the theater released a performance in the genre of psychological drama based on the famous play by the Swedish classic August Strinberg “Miss Julie”. Only young actors-students of Zaporozhye National University were involved in the performance. The participation of student actors has now become a feature of the New Theatre. So in 2015, the theater prepared a performance in the genre of sound-vision-drama, or a performance-cinema about the city of Zaporozhye and the war in Eastern Ukraine. In this authorial, patriotic project, along with the masters of the New Theater, students of the acting department also played beautifully. And in 2016, the New Theater released an even larger project – a tragedy based on the play by William Shakespeare “Romeo and Juliet”, where among the 20 actors, only 6 were professional actors, and 14 were students. But what the viewer always notes is the sincerity and dedication of the participants in the performances of the New Theater – gives odds to many professional groups in Ukraine.

In 2016, the New Theater releases a charming comedy called “I don’t give a damn about your million”. The performance was based on the play by Valery Mukharyamov “Thank you, Margot”. There are only 4 characters, but the performance brings joy to both the audience and the actors for the whole million …..

The theatre’s plans include many more new and unexpected productions, touring across Ukraine and participating in theater festivals.

Thanks to all our viewers for their support, including financial support, because by buying tickets, you thereby become our sponsors and patrons. Thank you for your love of the theatre. We love you too!