Saturday, 16th November will mark ten years since the death of Jovan Ćirilov. On that occasion, the small stage of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre – Studio YDT will officially be renamed as The Ćirilov Studio.
Together with Bojan Stupica, Jovan Ćirilov has been the most influential general manager of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre. He arrived at our theatre in mid 1950s where he was to leave a bright and indelible trail, not only in the theatre world of Serbia, or Yugoslavia as the country was then, but on a much broader theatre scene. He began his work as assistant director and junior dramaturgue, but he was also closely connected to the work of the theatre library and archives. As a very young man with a degree in philosophy, a polyglot with a broad education and range of interests, Ćirilov soon became acquainted with the life and the entire running of a theatre that later on he would lead with great aplomb and success. In 1963, he became the artistic director where he remained for the next three ears. Together with the renowned director and then general manager of the theatre Miroslav Belović, he was responsible for daring moves concerning Serbian theatre tradition in the shape of staging premières of plays by Rastko Petrović or Vojislav Jovanović Marambo but also for exclusive events such as the première of Tango by Sławomir Mrożek or the presence of Jean-Paul Sartre on the opening night of his own play The Condemned of Altona. Jovan Ćirilov came back to the YDT in 1985 where he remained as general manager until 1999. During those fourteen theatre seasons, he not only renewed the theatre that had suffered through long years of crisis, but he also rejuvenated its repertoire, its staff and its appearance. But more than that, he had created the foundations that many regional theatrical institutions could use as a blueprint for their own future. Always interested in trying something new, prepared to take artistic risks, and yet remarkably true to its traditions and roots in what had come before, he maintained a constant dialogue with the heritage and, albeit not formally, Jovan Ćirilov brought the Yugoslav Drama Theatre straight into the 21st century. A short lived hiatus and the crises that ensued could not touch the strength and impact of his lasting heritage – it transpired that Jovan Ćirilov’s vision for the theatre was stronger, that it represents a foundation on which it is possible, even desirable, to continue building something that will continue for many generations to come. The renaming of the Studio YDT stage into the Ćirilov Studio, on the tenth anniversary of his death, is only the outer, the visible link in a remarkably strong chain that binds the Yugoslav Drama Theatre to the local, Serbian, regional and European world of theatre.
My Husband will be the first production to be performed on the renamed stage and on that very date – 16th November.