New Life Theatre Company

New Life Theatre Company, Novi Zivot, has produced 40 plays since it was founded in Zagreb Croatia in 1948. By working with the most prominent Directors, set and costume designers, within ten years New Life brought their productions up to the level of any other professional company's work.

At the initiative of Professor Anton Lastric, the founder of the company, and with the help of a well known Croatian Writer and Director, Fadil Hadjic, the Company became housed at the Vidra theatre on the premises of the Dom Slijepih or the Institute for the Blind in 1957, which until today has remained their home and one of the most reputable theatres in Zagreb.

From a broad acting pool of over 30 visually impaired trained performers in Croatia, they have adapted or revived a whole series of plays, including Moliere Radovan Ivsic, and most recently Oedipus Rex, as well as working with an established choreographer to devise approaches and methods of stage movement to assist blind actors in their performance.

At the beginning of the 80's the company began to travel throughout Europe, playing for the Croatian Diaspora, which they still do today. Three years ago they initiated the international Blind in Theatre Festivals in Zagreb, aiming to host this every two years and platform the work of theatre companies of visually impaired people from across the world.

Disabled actors are prohibited from entering drama school in Croatia and many neighbouring countries in that part of Europe have the same restrictions. Without a formal drama school training, professional status cannot be gained by actors or companies such as New Life, who remain labelled as semi-professional, despite the extremely high quality of their work, which would rival any of our disability theatre companies, and despite their consistent output and extensive touring. This inequality, it seems, has given them the drive to compete with the main stream to prove their validity as artists and producers, especially over the last ten years, when their fifty-year-old company has experienced somewhat of a renaissance under their latest Director Nina Kleflin.

Chronology of plays produced in the last ten years are as follows:

• 1990 - J.B.P. Moliere: Scapin's intrigues, directed by Nina Kleflin.

• 1991 - Lope de Vega: La discreta enamorada, directed by Nina Kleflin.

• 1992 - Sinisa Glavasevic: Vukovar Stories, directed by Marko Merle.

• 1992 - Hans Wegil: Who is doctor Hladny, directed by Nina Kleflin.

• 1994 - J.B.P. Moliere: Scapin's intrigues, directed by Nina Klefli.,

• 1994 - Recital of the Spiritual Poetry of Croatian Poets.

• 1995 - Danil Ivanovich Harms: Harms-Carms-Sardam (fictitious world in 6 images), directed by Nina Kleflin.

• 1996 - Georges Feydeau: Mais n'te promene donca pas toute nue, directed by Snjezana Banovic.

• 1997 - Fadil Hadzic: Operator, directed by Zoran Muzic.

• 1997 - P.A.C. Beaumarchais: Figaro's wedding, directed by Nina Kleflin.

• 1998 - Borislav Vujcic: Cobweb of the open sea, directed by Zoran Muzic.

• 1998 - D. I. Harms: Zeros and Nils, directed by Nina Kleflin.

• 1999 - Radovan Ivsic: The King Gordogain, directed by Nina Kleflin.

New Life have recently mounted a production of Oedipus Rex, which opened at their resident Vidra Theatre in Zagreb in December 2001 and is a production they will tour in their own country in 2002.

To visit the New Life Theatre's website see our Links page, accessed from the menu.