E-theatrum, theatre at home

Catalina Biholar is a young journalist from Suceava who found an alternative to going to the theatre: home theatre.

România Internațional, 12.01.2014, 13:09

Together with a team of image and sound engineers, Catalina Biholar records theatre plays for those who cannot go to a theatre hall. Romanians living abroad are the biggest fans of this project. Catalina Biholar explains the e-theatrum concept:

“I was driving one day with my partner, Cezar Paun, when I had this idea. We were going from Botosani to Suceava. The latter is a town with no theatre hall. So we were talking about ways to bring culture closer to people in towns with no theatre halls. The only thing that Suceava has is a cultural center. So it was then that we came up with the idea of using the Internet to make theatre available to Romanians living abroad, who are an important part of our audience. We mostly record shows performed in national theatres across Romania, as well as shows performed by beginner actors and independent groups. We record performances with live audience, by using 5 full-HD cameras. We even go behind the scenes, make interviews with actors and directors and then we edit the show and have the trailers done, to make it easier for theatre lovers to pick the show they want to watch.”

Shows can be watched on a computer or smart phone. The team’s suggestion is that, when watching the recording on a laptop, this should be connected to the TV set by HDMI, so that the image is larger. In case you wonder how expensive a ticket to e-theatre is and if subscriptions are available, Catalina has the answer:

“There is no subscription system in place yet, but we are working on it. If anyone wants to watch a theatre performance on e-theatrum.com, it can pay for it through the pay per view system. The price of a ticket for one e-theatre play is 3 dollars and 99 cents, the equivalent of 14 Romanian lei. Theatres receive part of the money, according to the contract we signed.”

There are currently 4 shows on the e-theatrum website and several others will be soon uploaded, at a pace of one per week:

“A Marriage Proposal by Anton Chekhov enjoys great success with the audience. It is a comedy staged at the theater in Botosani and is the first show we ever recorded. There is another play by Chekhov, The Bear, and an interesting adaptation after Schiller, Mary Stuart, with a small number of characters. It’s a very good play and is also very long, it takes about two hours. There is also the show of some beginner actors from Suceava, a comedy entitled On a Spring Day. We filmed it because we want to show other young actors that e-theatrum.com can be a launching pad for them as well. We asked Catalina about the way theatre directors welcomed the idea:

“There were people who did not understand the fact that this is an opportunity and that this formula offers a great deal of exposure. Many years ago, a Broadway show was broadcast on TV and then people went to the theater hall to see it up close. People from the town of Bacau can go and see Mary Stuart on stage, but those in Cluj, Boston or Larnaca can only watch it on the Internet, and that’s an opportunity for them.”

The project initially started outside Bucharest and will soon expand to the capital city and other cities that are famous for the quality of the performances they stage.

“Little by little we’ll start including performances staged in Bucharest. We will soon be recording two performances by Matei Visniec, with whom we collaborate on this project. So we’ll start the year 2014 with two shows by Matei Visniec staged in a very original manner. And because we also think about children and parents, we’ll soon upload a children’s play staged in the city of Brasov a puppet show that will keep children busy. We hope that each of the shows performed today in important theatres throughout Romania will be uploaded on e-theatrum. We are open to suggestions from the audience, so if there are any particular performances they would like to see, they should let us know.”

If you miss theatre in Romanian or if you want to know more about Romanian drama, e-theatrum.com is the solution.