RUTA Festival

RUTA – REGIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL

The Ruta Festival is a regional theatre festival that brings together six theatres from the countries of former Yugoslavia: Belgrade Drama Theatre, Skopje Drama Theatre, Chamber Theatre 55 from Sarajevo, Podgorica City Theatre from Montenegro, Ulysses Theatre from Zagreb and Ljubljana City Theatre.

The acronym Ruta, formed from three meaningful words (Regionalna unija teatara), establishes a direct association with the central purpose of the alliance (for now): to organise a travelling international theatre festival that visits all the festival venues every year. The selection of productions represents the best quality achievements from the repertoires of the visiting theatres. The Ljubljana City Theatre has decided to present productions by contemporary Slovenian authors.

The goal of the Alliance is to institutionalise the cooperation between these theatres, to enable audiences to see the most representative productions from the region, to organise major co-productions and to present their greatest achievements (in Belgrade in December, in Ljubljana in February, in Podgorica in April, in Sarajevo in June, in Brijuni in August, in Skopje in October).

The Ljubljana City Theatre hosted its first festival in February 2022, during which the Slovenian audiences were able to see nine productions from the former Yugoslavia. The honorary patron of the Ruta Festival is Mr. Zoran Janković, Mayor of Ljubljana, who also opened the festival. 

The second Ruta festival in Ljubljana will be hosted by Ljubljana City Theatre in February 2023.