LNDT's New Artistic Directors Start Work

The new artistic directors of LNDT: Eglė Švedkauskaitė, Kamilė Gudmonaitė, and Antanas Obcarskas. Photo by Dmitrijus Matvejevas.

As the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre (LNDT) enters a new phase of its activities and changes the course of its creative program, three theatre directors – Kamilė Gudmonaitė, Antanas Obcarskas, and Eglė Švedkauskaitė – start their new positions as Artistic Directors. The new artistic directors will shape the creative and artistic route of the LNDT, ensure the artistic quality of the theatre's premieres, and develop alternative activities that will enable the theatre to be integrated into the life of society diversely and to become even closer to the contemporary audience.

"The National Drama Theatre is constantly undergoing a creative transformation and today we are turning over a new page, where three directors of the new generation will create their own and the history of the theatre. Inviting thirty-year-olds to work here is a natural stage in our theatre's activity, because all the time I have been the head of the National Drama Theatre, I’ve been striving for the theatre to be made by renowned creators but also by artists who are just starting on their professional path. Openness to innovation and change are values that we particularly cherish in this theatre. The team of artistic directors will have a broader scope and will be able to focus on all the activities of the theatre: repertoire development, quality of performances, education, and social responsibility of the theatre," says Martynas Budraitis, the head of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre.

According to the new artistic directors, their vision is a theatre that is capable of combining not only different generations, but also two creative directions: high-quality, contemporary productions of classical works that allow us to look at eternal themes through the contexts of aesthetics and philosophy of the time, and performances that question social and political structures and draw on documentary texts or social research.

"We are three young artists, representing different artistic directions, but what unites us is the conviction that theatre should speak about individual experiences, delve into silent themes and search for forms of survival in the face of political, social, and ecological catastrophe. We bring a new sensibility to theatre and want to see the world as a space for change and the exploration of connections. Today it is more important than ever to see the other person in all their vulnerability and insecurity. This is the creative position of the three of us, with which we are starting a new period in the life of the theatre", the new artistic directors introduce themselves.

Kamilė Gudmonaitė, Antanas Obcarskas, and Eglė Švedkauskaitė intend to ensure the artistic quality of the premieres through a renewed repertoire strategy and a review of the quality of the performances. In response to the demand expressed by the creators and theatre staff, they plan to reduce the pace and lengthen the creative process. In addition, they aim to create a diverse program, covering different genres and the expectations of different audiences, with more productions for children and young people. They intend to implement a system of three previews for each premiere, allowing decisions to be taken on how to improve performances before they are presented to the public.

The audience will see performances by renowned masters – Gintaras Varnas, and Yana Ross, and the works by Jo Strømgen, Łukasz Twarkowski, and Anna Smolar, who will be returning to Lithuania again. In March, Eugene Ionesco's "Rhinoceros", directed by Antanas Obcarskas, will be performed. In April, the audience will see the production "Fossilia" by Egle Švedkauskaitė, and at the end of the year, the reconstructed Great Hall of the National Drama Theatre will open with the contemporary opera "Things I Didn't Dare to Say, and Now It's Too Late" by Kamilė Gudmonaitė.

The theatre's new artistic directors have graduated in theatre directing from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and work as freelance theatre directors in Lithuania and other countries.

Kamilė Gudmonaitė began her career at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre with a performance based on August Strindberg's work "A Dream Play". It has won several awards (at Spoleto Festival in Italy, the "Setkání/Encounter" Festival in the Czech Republic, and "Il Teatro Nudo di Teresa Pomodoro" in Milan). She has created several productions for OKT/Vilnius City Theatre, worked in Kaunas, Klaipėda, and recently in Tallinn, Berlin, and Freiburg. Kamilė Gudmonaitė takes on complex social issues and presents them to the audience in a powerful way. Her performance about gender identity, "Trans Trans Trance", has been performed outside Lithuania several times and won prizes in Milan and at the Equality Awards in Lithuania, while one of her most recent productions, "The Celebration", which also features people with various disabilities, has received recognition at the Lithuanian "Sirenos" Festival. In 2022 in Rome, Gudmonaitė was awarded the Giuseppe Bertolucci Prize as the best young European theatre director.

Antanas Obcarskas presented his debut play "Voicekas" at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre (in the Young Artists Program), for which he was nominated for the Golden Cross of the Stage national award in the Young Artist category. Currently, four plays directed by Obtsarskas are performed at the LNDT: "Voicekas", "Alice" (which won three Golden Crosses), "Who Killed My Father" and "Boxing". His productions analyze themes of identity and being that are relevant to a young person, and explore complex issues of the individual and intergenerational relationships. Obcarskas has also staged plays in Kaunas and Helsinki. At the end of 2022, he was awarded the Young Artist Prize by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture.

Eglė Švedkauskaitė made her debut with "Heda Gabler" at the Old Theatre of Vilnius. Her performance "I Dreamt That Somebody Called Me Darling" won 1st place at the Spoleto Festival. In 2020, she was nominated for the Golden Cross in the Young Artist category for directing the play "The Man from the Fish" at the Youth Theatre. Her work is dominated by themes of memory, recollection, and delving into the past of her country and its people and the traces left behind. Her recent works, such as "Sulphur Magnolias" (LNDT), the performance "Gazing at One Another", and "Memoirs of a Young Man" (State Youth Theatre), have been very well received by critics and audiences.

The artistic program that Kamilė Gudmonaitė, Antanas Obcarskas, and Eglė Švedkauskaitė have developed be presented in the 84th season of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, which will begin in autumn 2023.