As a playwright I’ve always been interested in creating an unforgettable experience for an audience, challenging the way we participate in a story both as storytellers and audience members. I see the theatre experience as a magic box that unfolds to offer, for the ones watching, urgent hints and questions on their condition. Growing up surrounded by music (my father was a jazz guitar player), I’ve always looked at a theatre piece as a musical structure, containing a dimension that’s beyond rationality, addressing mostly our subjectivity and sense of feeling. I think that when we get into that zone as an audience participating together in a story, theatre becomes the most exciting of live art forms. I also believe performance space should not restrict imagination. In a world where mainstream theatre has become so expensive to make, alternative ways of reconsidering what “performance space” is have been of great inspiration to me lately. Site-specific, immersive theatre has been one of my major interests in the past few years.
Peca Ştefan (13.08.1982) studied dramatic writing at New York University, was a resident of the Royal Court International Residency and CEC ArtsLink Playwright in Residence at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven.
He was the winner of the first dramAcum contest in Romania, in 2002. His work has been presented widely in Europe and the United States. His plays have won several awards, including the Heidelberg Stuckemarkt Innovation Award (2007) for Romania 21. He was also one of the 5 European Playwrights selected in the Berliner Theatertreffen Stuckemarkt 2010, with Wire and Acrobats.
In 2012, the production of his play Targoviste de Jucarie (Playground Targoviste) was selected in the New Plays from Europe festival in Wiesbaden. He was one of the top 35 European playwrights featured in the 35th Anniversary Edition of the Berliner Theatertreffen in May 2013.
Theatre works
2014 / Stadiu mediu de degradare (Medium State of Decay); first staged: 2014
2014 / Broken City – The Lower East Side Prologue; first staged: 2014
2014 / +/- 60 The clock is ticking; first staged: 2014
2014 / Geografia inutil…; first staged: 2014
2014 / Sfântul din Sfântu Gheorghe (The Saint of Saint George); first staged: 2014
2013 / Bremen; first staged: 2015
2013 / Green Hours! – A multi-episode site-specific show; first staged: 2013
2012 / You Wanted a Hit?
2012 / 1.Salvationkit
2010 – 2013 / LO-FI
2011 / Târgoviște de jucărie; first staged: 2011
2011 / Imposibilitatea apropierii (The Impossibility of Closeness);
2010 / Roșia Montană – pe linie fizică și politică (physically and politically); first staged: 2010
2009 / Flowers are No Victims
2009 / Wire and Acrobats; first staged: 2011
2009 / 5 minute miraculoase în Piatra Neamț (5 Miraculous Minutes in Piatra Neamț); first staged: 2009
2008 / Povești adevărate complet inventate despre Baia Mare (Completely Invented True Stories about Baia Mare); first staged 2008
2008 / Buy Me With a Coffee; first staged: 2008
2007 / Gigantic
2006 / Bucharest Calling; first staged: 2006
2005 / Bebe’s Trip
2005 / The Sunshine Play; first staged: 2005
2005 / The Complete Truth about the Life and Death of Kurt Cobain; first staged: 2008
2004 / New York [Fuckin’ City]; first staged: 2004
2004 / Romania 21; first staged: 2010
2004 / Colors; first staged: 2007
2003 / I H♥TE HELEN; first staged: 2005
2002 / Andreea/Andreea
2002 / Ziua futută a lui Nils/Nils’ Fucked Up Day; first staged: 2008
2001 / Punami
2000 / picabo/pinguini [picabo/penguins]; first staged: 2009
1999 / Dric II – Popdays; first staged: 2000
1999 / Showdown; first staged: 2003
1998 / o stație/station; first staged: 2006
Gigantic
When his father pays him an unexpected visit in his Bucharest apartment, Paul gets to realize that the diabetic old man has actually left his marriage and is about to move to New York for good in order to make possible his life dream of playing jazz at the Blue Note. While trying to get his father to change his mind, Paul reaches a number of revelations about his own life and some of the actual possibilities of true love.
The Impossibility of Closeness
A photographer is abducted by a strange woman who wants to send him to Siberia to be part of the greatest still life art installation. A girl has just learnt how to fly. A man and a woman have been playing tag all their lives in the city of the Blind. In Japan men have decided to substitute women with sex toys and it must be the end of the world. All of the sudden, Kangaroos roam the Earth, guiding lost souls towards true closeness. “Love will tear us apart”, “Small Metal Gods”, “Heroes”, “Hurt” and “After Hours” are the soundtrack of limbo. Is closeness possible or can only kangaroos achieve it? In this surrealist dark journey through the after hours, life and death are only a matter of perspective and the question is: how much of a kangaroo can one be?
LO-FI – Cassette One
Virgil returns moves to his mother’s apartment after a mysterious fire got him fired from a Bucharest paper factory. In his old room he rediscovers the home recorded, lo-fi music he had recorded all throughout his teenage years. Much to his surprise, he meets homeless ex-musician Paco who has been secretly living in Virgil’s room for a number of years. Paco begs Virgil to start writing again so they can participate in the worldwide competition of Lo-Fi World Dot Com. While initially extremely reluctant, soon enough Virgil is forced to revisit his music when the strange Snake Woman and the police come knocking at his door. Tapes came to life to reveal the mystery of Virgil’s life, where nothing is what it seems. In this hybrid musical play, illusions make you who you are.
