Prešeren Theatre Kranj has already begun preparations for the 56th Week of Slovenian Drama, which, as tradition dictates, will open on World Theatre Day, 27 March.
At a press conference, Prešeren Theatre Kranj managing director Rok Bozovičar, festival programme selector Zala Dobovšek and assistant to the director Nika Leskovšek introduced the programme of the 56th Week of Slovenian Drama, the central festival for productions based on Slovenian drama texts which the Prešeren Theatre Kranj organises with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the City of Kranj.
"The 56th Week of Slovenian Drama will bring a selection of the best and most artistically incisive theatre productions of the past year and many accompanying events. With its focus on outstanding drama creativity, the festival’s 56th edition will be another celebration of Slovenian drama," said Bozovičar.
Theatre scholar and assistant professor at the Department of Dramaturgy and Performing Arts at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television of the University of Ljubljana (UL AGRFT), Zala Dobovšek, served as the selector for this year’s festival. Throughout the last year, she saw 64 productions based on Slovenian drama scripts that premièred in 2025, produced by both institutional theatres and by independent producers, in Slovenia and abroad.
After a year of closely following the latest theatre productions, Dobovšek estimates in her report that "a detailed (comparative) analysis of these events reveals plenty, perhaps even everything. These aren’t just artistic projects, they are always aesthetic manifestations of actual, existing, but often still invisible and unarticulated tensions, inequalities and complacency that leave their mark on our performing scene (and, of course, on our society at large). In terms of programming and concepts, 2025 demonstrated exceptional engagement and activism, with a lot of responsibility, sensitivity and boldness in research and experimentation."
Dobovšek included seven productions in the Competition Programme and five productions in the Accompanying Programme.
As she describes in her report, "Of the 64 productions, 53 were conceived using the principles of devised theatre. They were based on carefully selected documentary materials, texts created during the process, textual materials, and hybrids of original dramas and their reinterpretations. Undoubtedly, the selected documentary theatre productions not only thematise but also critically and courageously open the sensitive spots of our lives: they are principled in their unveiling of the deliberately overlooked aspects of history, they dig into the dehumanisation of the local positions of power, and without reservations speak about war as a sick perversion that unfolds in front of our eyes. These are the productions that are primarily marked by responsibility in the noblest sense of the word: responsibility to the world materialised through the responsibility of art towards society, when the majority ‘uses’ its power to speak about minorities, when it ‘uses’ public space for the stories that were pushed out of this space. These are productions that don’t flee from (collective or individual) discomfort because this discomfort is the only way to move forward and outward."
