Versmė 2024

November brings the “Versmė” festival once again, and I have looked forward to it for the past few years; this wait felt like waiting for a bridge from Vilnius’s darkening landscape to brighter scenes, like a flight into the mental landscape of another country. The three plays presented by the “Actoral” festival accurately reflect the France I have come to know through several visits this year, at a time when ties between Lithuania and France are particularly close due to the Lithuanian Cultural Season. These texts bring France closer here and now. Although the connection is remote, the image arrives without the slightest delay.

French dramaturgy has long been beloved in Lithuania, but it is a great joy to introduce entirely new authors to our theatrical horizon, along with their language, style, and themes, which are personal yet deeply socially engaged. This year, “Versmė” is vibrant and pulsating, and the plays by Rebecca Chaillon, Sonia Chiambretto, and Mathieu Tulissi Gabard throb, sparkle, and leave no one indifferent.

On another stage at this year’s “Versmė,” plays from the playwrights-in-residence program take center stage, led by a text by Lithuanian director and screenwriter Karolis Kaupinis. I sincerely invite all members of our community to attend the reading of this play – I have yet to read a text that examines the legendary art of Lithuanian theater with such a precise, loving, yet demanding gaze.

Let “Versmė” find its way back into your November calendars once again!

Eglė Švedkauskaitė, Artistic Director of the LNDT