The international youth theater festival “Išeities taškas,” taking place September 22–October 4 at the Kaunas City Chamber Theater, invites audiences to discover emerging talents in the performing arts for the 11th time. This year’s program features contemporary circus, documentary theater, and performances of dance, puppet, and object theater, as well as the now-traditional sketch competition. For the second year in a row, the festival is showcasing young artists from the Czech Republic; at the heart of the international program is the human being and their relationship with themselves, others, and the world around them.
In the sketches of young artists: internal and social conflicts
One of the most important parts of the festival’s program is the competition for performance sketches, which has been held since 2019. It gives young creators the opportunity to present stage works that are still in the early stages of development, and allows audiences to be the first to experience ideas that may one day become part of the Kaunas City Chamber Theater’s repertoire.
This year’s competition features four different works that explore citizenship, war, totalitarianism, and human alienation. The play “Why Don’t I Vote?” by the “Tarp” theater troupe , created by the theater troupe “Tarp,” will use the creators’ personal stories to spark a conversation about citizenship and responsibility, while director Dominykas Matulionis’s “Mission,” based on the real-life experiences of a Lithuanian volunteer in Ukraine, will invite audiences to delve into the reality of people caught on the front lines of war. Director Augustas Gudelis’s “Helverio Night” will explore the place of people with disabilities in society and human fragility under totalitarianism, while director Paulius Juška’s *The Box Man*, inspired by Kobo Abe’s novel, uses a cardboard box as a metaphor to explore burnout, loneliness, and the search for identity.
The “Starting Point” sketch competition is important not only as a showcase for the work of young artists. It is an opportunity to observe a work as it takes shape—when there is no final answer yet, but there is already a question, an idea, and an attempt to bring it to life on stage.
Young theater artists from the Czech Republic are coming to Kaunas
This year’s international festival program features guests from the Czech Republic. Peter Gonda’s “Lil Drama” is a play in which teenagers take the stage to address adults and talk about the world in which they are growing up. The production, which has been in development since 2024, emerged from the young participants’ and creators’ explorations of oppression, violence, and resistance. It is a play created by teenagers for adults—one that invites us, if only for a moment, to shift the usual dynamic between those who speak and those who listen.
Another work by festival guests from the Czech Republic is “Kawloon: The Largest House in the World,” presented by the FRAS troupe. This puppet and object theater performance is inspired by a place that once existed in Hong Kong Kowloon Walled City – a densely populated urban neighborhood that, over time, has become a city within a city. Through puppets, projections, sound, and live music, the performance tells the story of a person’s attempt to find their place in an unfamiliar environment and ultimately turn a foreign space into a home.
Works by LMTA Students—On Family, Trauma, War, and Identity
The festival program features the graduation performances of students from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater as a highlight. These are works that employ diverse theatrical languages and span various genres, reflecting the themes that matter most to the younger generation of artists.
The graduation project “Hope” by director Paulius Juška and his classmates tells the story of a family in which unresolved problems and painful experiences are passed down from one generation to the next. This year’s graduation project by the acting class graduating from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater (LMTA), *Into the Night* (dir. Aleksandr Špilevoj), based on a work by Ingmar Villqist, returns to the themes of propaganda, hatred, and totalitarianism. The spring course project by the current third-year students (course director: Gintaras Varnas), *The Fire of the End* directed by Balys Švedas and based on a play by Dea Loher, explores the relationships within a community shaken by the death of a child and what remains within them after a painful tragedy.
Paulius Juška’s graduation production, “Who Are You?”, offers a somewhat different take on identity. It is a puppet and object theater piece in which a living person encounters an image created by artificial intelligence. The play raises the question of how much our image depends on ourselves, and how much on how our environment perceives and shapes us.
Works to suit every viewer's taste
The festival will open with *Grimmasos*, directed by Gildas Aleksa—a contemporary circus performance by Kanta Company and *Teatrono*, inspired by the first uncensored edition of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales. The production uses circus, dance, and the world of fairy tales to take a playful look at the darker sides of human nature. This year’s festival program is further enriched by other interdisciplinary works, including the eco-logical musical fairy tale “Kompostas,” presented by the visual theater company “Kosmos Theatre,” in which music, circus, and folklore come together around three old pianos.
Artist Kristina Marija Kulinič’s “Breaking News—The Last Dance for Freedom?” is a performative solo piece in which the biblical archetype of Salome serves as a starting point for exploring the loneliness of modern humans, the search for truth, and the need for connection. Meanwhile, “Sarabanda” will close this year’s festival with an audio-visual lecture that brings together science, myths, and imagination.
These productions, together with the festival’s entire program, invite us to discuss what matters to young people today—from personal choices and relationships with family to war, social division, and the search for one’s place in the world. The 11th International Youth Theater Festival “Starting Point” will take place September 22–October 4 at the Kaunas City Chamber Theater.
The festival is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and the Kaunas City Municipality.
