Showcase Selection – Shows

“This year marks the first edition of the Sarajevo Theatre Showcase, a platform envisioned to chart the dynamic theatrical landscape of the Balkans while opening dialogue with the broader European context. In shaping this inaugural selection, the committee embraced a dual mandate: to set a foundation for future editions and to create space for new ways of valuing and interpreting regional theatre — beyond conventional hierarchies or aesthetic norms.

The process was challenging. From over sixty submissions, we have selected six performances — five international works and one by the host institution SARTR — that together form a diverse and powerful programme. This is by no means a ranking; the choice was difficult, and we recognize that at least a dozen other works could equally merit international presentation.

Among selected works is Jasna Žmak’s this is my truth, tell me yours (Centre for Drama Art - Zagreb, Croatia, Via Negativa - Ljubljana, Slovenia & City of Women - Ljubljana, Slovenia), a work of documentary intimacy that transforms personal narratives into collective feminist truths and quietly interrogates how public and private realities intersect. Jeton Neziraj’s PRISHTINA. The Premeditated Killing of a Dream, directed by Blerta Neziraj (Qendra Multimedia - Prishtina, Kosovo), confronts post‑war disillusionment with biting humour and grotesque theatricality, offering a sharply critical portrait of dreams deferred in a fractured city. In Slovenia’s Dimitrije Kokanov and Bojana Robinson’s The Machine (Zavod 0.1 Ljubljana in co‑production with Cankarjev dom - Ljubljana, Slovenia), radical formal experimentation merges feminist thought with questions of technology, the body, and systemic power, evoking an unsettling vision of human fragility in a mechanized world. With Suicide As a Social Fact, created by Anja Bilanović and Ana Janković for Bitef Theatre (Belgrade, Serbia), the committee recognized a courageous interdisciplinary exploration of suicide and mental health, one that fuses research, confession, and performance to spark collective dialogue. Finally, Ernst Toller’s Hinkemann, directed by Tamara Stojanoska (Independent Theatre Golden Yelets – Skopje, North Macedonia), revisits an expressionist classic through a contemporary visual lens, linking historical war trauma to the ongoing realities of violence, isolation, and loss.
In addition to these five regional works, we proudly include Podroom, written by Armin Behrem and directed by Ajla Bešić (Sarajevo War Theatre SARTR and Realstage - Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), which introduces new Bosnian voices and generational perspectives. Set in a charged nightlife space that blurs intimacy and estrangement, the piece interweaves techno rhythms with memory games, capturing the anxieties and desires of youth navigating uncertainty in Sarajevo today.

Together, these six works are not intended to define a single aesthetic or agenda. Rather, they invite dialogue — between local and international, between institutional and independent theatre, between intimate and political. The Showcase thus signals a commitment to collaboration, visibility, and sustainable Southeast European theatre practice, aligning with Sarajevo Theatre Showcase’s mission to connect, elevate and provoke.”

Selection Committee - Beka Vučo & Ulricha Johnson in dialogue with Andrej Nosov
July 24, 2025