THE ANNIVERSARY by Rebecca Wilhite

Wednesday, 18 October 2023 at 19:30
Large Stage of MADLENIANUM

Our first premiere of the 2023/2024 season is the play ANNIVERSARY, dramatized by Rebecca Wilhite and translated by Olivera Djordjevic.

This is a play about important and pivotal life questions, such as: Will we live our lives by the rules someone has written for us? Will we enter the pattern of life that our parents or other authorities have designed for us? Will we accept to be bound by conventions, giving up what our hearts tell us?

The play ANNIVERSARY, which the audience of Madlenianum will be able to see on the Large Stage beginning from18th October and in repeat performances on 29th and 31st October, is about a young woman who does not show up at the altar. Her parents are on the verge of a nervous breakdown... or possibly voluntary exile. An almost canceled wedding. An almost not solemnized marriage and an unexpected twist at the last moment! After a quarter of a century, here comes the celebration of that same marriage anniversary. The same place, the same hotel, the same room, the same people... Or are they not the same...? Is their marriage the same as well? Is there anything truly worth celebrating? Or could something unexpectedly go wrong this time too?

What Madlenianum offers its audience through ANNIVERSARY is a comedy full of warmth and themes that resonate with all generations: those on the verge of marriage, those on the brink of their children's weddings, and most of all, those at some crossroads in their own marriages. Rebecca Wilhite’s play is filled with humor that will provide everyone with an enjoyable evening, along with a few sentimental sighs or even tears of identification with well-crafted characters.

The author team of the play Anniversary includes a director Petar Jovanovic, a set designer Damjan Paranosic, a costume designer Milica Grbic Komazec, and a composer Bojan Milinkovic. Danilo Milovanovic is responsible for stage movement and Milica Janketic for stage speech. The lighting designer is Srdjan Jovanovic. The main character, Mimsy, is portrayed by actress Vanja Milacic, and alongside her, the audience will see Ljubinka Klaric, Srdjan Karanovic, Stefan Bundalo, Tamara Aleksic and Ljubomir Bulajic in splendid and lively roles.

Rebecca Wilhite's drama is set in New York. The first Act of the comedy takes place in 1968, a year of significant social change in America and worldwide, when primarily the younger generation rebelled against established social norms and demanded systemic changes in the way global society was evolving. The second Act of the play is in 1992, twenty-four years later. Mimsy rents the same hotel suite wishing to celebrate the wedding anniversary with Sam and "reconstruct" their first wedding night. However, we soon realize that their marriage is not as happy as we might have expected.

Petar Jovanovic was born in 1981 in Novi Sad. He completed his directing studies at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in the class of a Professor Bora Draskovic. During his studies, he was engaged as an assistant director at the Serbian National Theatre. Additionally, his student plays are performed at the Serbian National Theatre and the Novi Sad Theatre repertoires, while his student films have been screened at several domestic and international festivals. He graduated in 2004 with the documentary film The Land of Vajaja which was showcased at numerous festivals and won several awards, including the Golden Medal of the City of Belgrade at the 52nd Short Film Festival. The Land of Vajaja became part of the collections of the Museum of Vojvodina, the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade and the Ethnographic Museum in Budapest. In the position of an assistant director, he took part in the realization of feature films and TV series (The Party by Aleksandar Davic, An Early Frost by Djordje Balasevic, Snow of the Dream by Zoltan Bickei, and others). As a TV director, he has been engaged in projects for RT Vojvodina as well as in independent productions. He continues his work in documentary filmmaking as a collaborator both with the Museum of Vojvodina and the Isidor Bajic Memorial. Among his theater works are titles such as The Emigrants and the Police, or why all these?  by Slavomir Mrozek, Memorial Service in White by Miroslav Antic, God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, The State Job by D. Banjac, N. Skoric and D. Cirjakovic, We Hit the Bottom Today by D. Ljubicic and V. Zanetic, Speech Impediment by Goran Markovic, The Billboard  by Michael Vukadinovic, A Flea in Her Ear by G. Feydeau, The Cripple of Irishman by M. McDonagh, God by W. Allen, The Government Inspector by N. Gogol, Black Comedy  by P. Shaffer, and Two into One by R. Cooney. His plays have had numerous performances both at the respective theaters and guest appearances in the country and the region.
Since 2017, he has been a lecturer in the Creative Production Department at the FEFA Faculty in Belgrade and in 2022 he was promoted to the position of associate professor.

More >>>