Gavroche Theater Festival opens in Moscow

For the fourth year in a row the Gavroche Festival invites the best European children’s theatres to take part. This season is a French one. Dedicated to the Year of France in Russia, the Festival will present seven plays staged by French theater directors. In a recent interview with the Voice of Russia, art director Marina Raikina said that selecting the plays was a formidable task.
It took us at least a year to do so, Raikina says, lamenting the lack of quality plays for children in Russia and beyond. In this regard, she adds, the Festival’s program will feature a wide array of genres, including drama, puppet  theater and circus, which is now especially popular in France.
In Moscow, a French comic theater will present its Cabaret Acrostiches, a funny and smart spectacle for an entire family. Another performance, I Walked Across the Sky, will remind a bizarre kaleidoscope from the dreams, something parents and their children will enjoy when laying down and looking up. Raikina praised the author’s drive to try and find a new children-friendly genre.
Our next season will be devoted to Italy, Raikina explains, citing the Bologna Theater, which earlier mapped out a new program for children aged between 1 and 2 years old. Many other European theaters, including Sweden’s, were quick to follow suit, Raikina goes on to say, lauding the authors’ efforts to create more plays for the one-year-olds.
The Gavroche Festival crucially comes amid festivities dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of great Russian writer Anton Chekhov, whose Romance with Contrabass will be staged by a French theater within the Gavroche Festival’s framework. The play will see live classical music framing the scenic action as a background. Separately, making a splash is expected to be a play that will lean on masterpieces of prolific Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. A social emphasis of the festival is Little Brother Is Not Like Others, a puppet play that is all about children with Down’s syndrome. The play was initiated by French medics, who, in turn, urged popular children’s author Marie-Hélène Delva to write a script.
Last but not least is A Small Premiere, a play adult actors will perform in accordance with a script written by children aged between 8 and 9 years old. Critics have already appreciated the play, which they said aims to popularize family values.