A new artistic project by the Greek theater group THEAMA (Athens) began in January this year, with the Gato Escaldado Theater from Lisbon participating alongside the Grodzki Theater: http://www.teatrgrodzki.pl/…/diva-roznorodnosc…/
The main goal of the project is to promote the idea of inclusive theater by involving people with disabilities in creative activities and creating with them theatrical performances of high artistic value. The most important result of the initiative will be the staging of a show based on the motives of Euripides’ “The Trojans,” realized as a digital performance and live with an international cast of actors.
A screening of the digital performance is planned for December 2023, and three premieres – in Portugal, Poland and Greece – will take place in the summer of 2024.
In the first three months of the project, preparations were underway to begin work on the joint show. In March, the Grodzki Theater completed an open call for the Polish cast of “Trojan Women” conducted primarily through the distribution of flyers and posters informing people about the planned activities and the possibility of taking part in them. In addition, direct contacts were used with institutions supporting circles at risk of social exclusion in Bielsko-Biała and its surroundings, in particular: people with intellectual disabilities (the Occupational Therapy Workshop “You are needed!” and “Centrum” Środowiskowy Dom Samopomocy in Bielsko-Biała and Bestwin), psychiatric patients (Bielskie Centrum Psychiatrii – Olszówka), deaf people (Polish Association of the Deaf) and blind people (Polish Association of the Blind – Circle in Bielsko-Biała). Rehearsals for the show, which will feature puppets of the Greek gods Poseidon and Athena and the Trojan branes, will conclude in June, and their artistic results will be recorded outdoors and then included in the footage, which also includes scenes prepared in Greece and Portugal.