Theatre: Award Recipients
Artists and creators of the Nova Gorica theatre have received numerous awards, among which at least some achievements deserve special mention.
Among the recipients of Slovenia’s highest acting lifetime achievement award are three actors who either spent their entire careers or remained for a long period loyal to the Nova Gorica theatre. Aleksander Krošl, a master of character roles with a flair for satire, who joined the acting ensemble in 1982, received the Borštnik Ring in 2000. Bine Matoh came to Nova Gorica after completing his acting studies and, as theatre scholar Vasja Predan noted, confirmed his “undisputed acting talent” already with his first roles on the professional stage; he received the Borštnik Ring in 2004. Ivo Barišič began his acting career as a self-taught performer during the theatre’s professionalisation; the explanation accompanying his Borštnik Ring award in 2022 highlighted “dedication and openness” as key features of his artistic work.
At Slovenia’s central theatre festival, four Nova Gorica productions have received the award for best overall performance. The first came in 1987, when Red Noses, Peter Barnes’s pseudo-historical tragic farce, triumphed in a large-scale staging directed by Dušan Mlakar. The second Borštnik Grand Prix followed already the next year, awarded to The Cannibals, a macabre dance by Gregor Strniša, staged in a full-blooded production directed by Mile Korun. After more than a decade, in 1999, the dystopian one-act play Endgame by Samuel Beckett received the award in a suggestive staging directed by Vito Taufer. In 2005, the production Meanwhile was awarded best performance at the Borštnik Festival; it was based on a fragmentary dramatic text by Srečko Fišer, inspired by Primo Levi’s autobiographical novel The Truce – an odyssey of return from Auschwitz, directed by Janusz Kica.
SNG Nova Gorica also co-founded the Tantadruj Award together with the theatres of Koper and Trieste, named after a literary character by Ciril Kosmač; since 2011 it has been awarded for lifetime achievement and outstanding artistic accomplishments within the Littoral theatre season.
Avtor: Ana Perne