The Fifth Anton Chekhov International Theatre Festival took place in 2003 and in a large measure followed the traditions of the Theatre Olympics.For the first the Japanese theatre season was held within the framework of the Festival, their programs featuring the performances of the Kabuki and Noh theatres, as well as Tadashi Suzuki’s Performing Arts Center in Shizuoka.
The programs the World Series, the Experimental Theatre and Theatre for Children, the latter being for the first time organized within the framework of Chekhov Festival, featured 40 productions. The audiences saw the new productions by Declan Donnellan, Jacques Lassalle, Robert Sturua, Frank Castorf, Matthias Langhoff, Christoph Marthaler, Bartabas and some others. For the first time in the program of Chekhov Festivals included “portrait of theatre” – The State Stuttgart Drama Theatre: seven productions in the Experimental Theatre Program. Three works of young Moscow directors had been produced in association with the Chekhov Festival and included in the Experimental Program also.
Moscow theatres were represented at the Festival by 46 productions.
Within the framework of the Festival were readings of the plays by foreign dramatists and round-tables on the following subjects:
“Theatre and violence – the new morality: taboos and theatre, globalization and theatre”;
“The purity of genres: the context of cultural memory. The culture of dialogues”.
There were also meetings with well-known directors whose works were represented at the Festival.
