Milena Marković THE DRAGONSLAYERS Directed by Iva Milošević Set Designer Gorčin Stojanović Costume Designer Maja Mirković Choreography Boris Čakširan Composer and Music Performer Vladimir Pejković Speech Ljiljana Mrkić Popović CAST NIKOLA RAKOČEVIĆ MIRJANA KARANOVIĆ RADOVAN VUJOVIĆ SRDJAN TIMAROV DUBRAVKA KOVJANIĆ MILAN MARIĆ JOVANA GAVRILOVIĆ Production Manager Vladimir Perišić / Janko Dimitrijević Stage Manager Dušan Milosavljević Prompter Dušan Pavlović Assistant Director Ana Vučelić Assistant Set Designer Ivana Krnjić Assistant Costume Designer Sonja Mrkobrada Sound Technician Aleksandar Major Lighting Technician Svetislav Calić / Dejan Draganov Premiere at Ljuba Tadić Stage of Yugoslav Drama Theatre on Saturday June 7th 2014. Duration: 2hrs, no intermission. 1 THE DRAGONSLAYERS Written by Milena Marković and directed by Iva Milošević, the play Dragonslayers deals with the subject of Sarajevo Assassination, the real beginning of the 20th century. A seventeen-year-old-boy with a gun, a would-be poet whose name – Gavrilo Princip – represents a historical symbol and a frequent subject of dispute, is presented as the protagonist, together with his compatriots and rebels in fight for freedom, usually named as Mlada Bosna. The piece is written as a “heroic cabaret”, in a form of an ironic history lesson, and tells the known story of the assassination using bustling poetic language to express the key demand – the demand for freedom. It is not a historical play, but a contemporary piece which examines the position of today’s young man and his need to express the demand – to be free. Iva Milošević: ‘The key point of this play is that it glorifies the freedom-loving spirit. Milena starts from the assumption that her heroes were fighters for freedom who sacrificed themselves for wellbeing of others in profound and sincere faith. From today’s safe distance one can think of the Assassination of Sarajevo in various ways, but ultimately the fact remains that it was an act of rebellion against oppression, injustice, occupation. And how do we view rebellion today? Not publicly, but deep within ourselves? This is the question the play poses. So, the sentence of ‘fallen for freedom’, already so worn nowadays, is really true in this case. How do we view this nowadays? Is it possible, from the point of view of today’s world and the spirit of this time, to speak of freedom-loving spirit as an ideal not merely captivated in myths?’ MILENA MARKOVIĆ Playwright, screenplay writer, poet. Milena was born on 9th April, 1974 in Zemun. She was schooled in Belgrade. Milena graduated in Dramaturgy from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in June 1998. In December 2001 Milena won the special award for her play Pavilions from the Theater M.b.H. in Vienna. Pavilions first opened in Belgrade at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in April 2001, directed by Alisa Stojanović. The same play premiered June, 2001 at the National Theatre in Skopje, directed by Srđan Janićijević. In June, 2002, Jaka Ivanc chose Pavilions as her graduation piece for her degree in theatre direction from Drama in Ljubljana. In October 2002 the same play opened at Theater M.b.H. in Vienna, directed by Zijah Sokolović. Her book of poems entitled The Dog who Ate the Sun was published in April, 2001 by Flavio Rigonat (LOM, Belgrade). Since then the book has had two additional reprints. Her play Tracks was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London in July/August 2002. Tracks opened in Belgrade in November of the same year at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, directed by Slobodan Unkovski and in May 2003 it was performed at the Polish city of Poznan, directed by Rafal Sabara. In November 2002 she took part in a poetry reading at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm where she read from her book of poems. In October, 2003 she published her second book of poems entitled The Truth in Heat with the same publisher LOM – Flavio Rigonat. In June 2004 a production of Tracks directed by Rafal Sabara was included in the programme of the Sterijino Pozorje theatre festival in Novi Sad where it won special award for best contemporary dramatic text. Toward the end of June 2004 the Yugoslav Drama Theatre production of Tracks was on tour at the New Plays festival at Wiesbaden. The text of the play was also published in the German theatre magazine Theater heute. In September 2004 Milena Marković took part in the exchange programme between Nordic and Balkan countries as a part of the SWITCH project – poetry reading in Stockholm and Gothenburg. 2 During December 2004 and January 2005 Milena was involved in writing the screenplay and the filming of a documentary entitled Rudarska Opera (Miners’ Opera) at the town of Bor. The documentary was directed by Oleg Novković. On 11th February of that same year a part of her new play The Woods Glisten was performed by Schauspielhaus theatre in Zurich. In October 2005 Milena won the prestigious Borislav Mihajlović – Mihiz award for drama opus for her play Boat for Dolls. In November 2005, Tracks premieres at the German town of Aachen. In October 2006 Milena publishes a book of French translations of her three plays – Tracks, White White World and Boat for Dolls, publisher Dominique Dolmieu. May 2006 saw the premiere of her play Orphan Simeon at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, directed by Tomi Janežič. In June 2006 Boat for Dolls directed by Slobodan Unkovski premieres at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade. In 2007 Tracks receives its first USA performance at TUTA theatre in Chicago. In June 2007 at the Sterijino Pozorje theatre festival Milena’s play Orphan Simeon won award for best play as well as nearly all the other awards at that year’s festival. Milena Marković wrote the screenplay for the feature film entitled Tomorrow Morning directed by Oleg Novković and produced by Zillion Film, Belgrade. The film was shown at festivals in Alexandria, Minsk and Vrnjacka Banja where it won awards for best screenplay. In September 2007 Milena published her third book of poems called Black Spoon, publisher LOM, Belgrade. In November 2007 she won the Milos Crnjanski award for her first book entitled Three Dramas. The Woods Glisten opens in October 2008 at Atelje 212, directed by Tomi Janežič. In February 2009 Mlena was the recipient of Todor Manojlović award. In June 2009 Milena won the Sterijino Pozorje theatre festival award for best play (Boat for Dolls, Serbian National Theatre). This production of Boat for Dolls went on tour as a part of the Quartet International Theatre Festival (Bratislava, Anseni, etc…) In October 2009 Milena published her fourth book of poems Bird’s Eye on the Fence, publisher LOM, Belgrade. Her book of plays under the name of The Woods Glisten was published in October 2009 by the National Library of Zrenjanin. In 2009 Aleksandar Popovski directs Boat for Dolls in Ljubljana. In 2010 Boat for Dolls was performed to great acclaim in Wiesbaden and The Woods Glisten in Vienna. In March 2010 Milena received the Biljana Jovanovic poetry award for her book of poems Bird’s Eye on the Fence. During the course of 2010 several public readings of Milena Marković’s poetry were held at venues such as the cultural centre Grad in Belgrade, Gradska Knjižara in Podgorica, etc… In May 2010 Milena received the Đura Jakšić poetry award for her book of poems Bird’s Eye on the Fence. The production of Boat for Dolls (Aleksandar Popovski, Ljubljana) won the Sterijino Pozorje theatre festival awards for best production, best female lead and music. Pavilions premieres in Tokyo, Japan in May 2010. In 2010 Oleg Novković directed the film called White, White World for which Milena Marković wrote the screenplay. The film premiered in August of the same year at the film festival at Locarno. The film won awards for best female role and special art film award. White, White World won first prize at the Cottbus film festival in November 2010. The film went on to win several awards at various film festivals. Milena Markovic took part at the poetry festival at Sète, France in June 2011. Translations of her poems were published in France in 2011, translated into French by Kolja Mićević. Milena’s play The Wire, directed by Goran Šušljik, premieres at Kosovska Mitrovica in August 2011. It opened in Belgrade at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in November of the same year. Her book of poems Before Everything Starts Spinning was published by LOM, Belgrade in 2011. June 2012 sees the publishing of Milena’s collected poems under the title of Poems and her collected plays under the title of Plays, both with the same publisher – LOM, Belgrade. In the July/August 2012 edition of its magazine Sinn und Form the German Academy of Science published a selection of poems by Milena Marković. 3 Katzelmacher by Rainer Werner Fassbinder opened in June 2012 at Dusko Radovic theatre, directed and adapted for the stage by Milena Marković. Students from the Secondary School for Crafts took part in the performance. The play was also included in the programme of BITEF festival Polyphony in September 2012. Early in December 2012 the Serbian National Theatre production of Boat for Dolls went on tour at the invitation of La MaMa theatre in New York. In 2013 a selection of Milena’s poems appeared in the March edition of Manuskripte magazine and in 2014 some of her poems were published in Wasafiri – The Magazne of International Contemporary Writing. In 2014 Milena published her latest book of poems – Poems for the Living and the Dead, publisher LOM, Belgrade. The filming of Fatherland, a feature film directed by Oleg Novković for which Milena Marković wrote the screenplay, is expected to start before the end of 2014.