Alexander Manuiloff (1978, Sofia, Bulgaria) is a writer, playwright, and screenwriter based in Sofia, whose practice embraces both text and performance. As a writer, he is interested in what dramaturgy can achieve outside of the conventional, well-made-play setting. Apart from being a century-long polished mode of entertainment, theatre, he believes, can be a platform to form up communities, help build a sense of solidarity, as well as trigger discussions in society on topics of urgent importance for our failing democracies. New forms of dramaturgy can be used to create situations, including ones that involve the audience itself. All approaches to dramaturgy can be fitting for certain contexts and purposes, and Manuiloff likes to explore all their potential. When it comes to the more traditional character-based plays, he is particularly interested in the marginal voices who rarely have their views heard in society and on stage.
The State is a concept for theatre without actors and without a director. In the form of a participative piece, it turns the audience into co-authors and players of each performance, and explores complex questions such as how we build societies, how democracies function, how societies constitute themselves via their common values, what it takes to cooperate with others and what is necessary for people to live together in a state. It also references a true story, that of a wave of dissent among the poorest of the poorest in Bulgaria triggered by heavy state corruption, and that of a real Bulgarian man, Plamen Goranov, who burnt himself in 2013 in a protest against the system, his self-immolation becoming the symbol of the despair and disillusionment of the people who had lost faith in a completely corrupt and helpless State.
Manuiloff has created solo and in various artistic configurations on four continents, performed at 50+ theatre festivals and his dramaturgical pieces have so far been translated into 13 languages, some of which are studied in university programmes. In 2018, he founded Radar Sofia, the first residency for playwrights and dramaturges in Bulgaria, with a special focus on artists at risk of facing political persecution.
Text: Róna Kopeczky
