THE POETS Live AND THE REVOLUTION
„He who falls in the fight for freedom does not die…” *
The Poets Live and The Revolution is a performance about the power of words in the darkest and most contentious times of our history. Through our favorite revolutionary poems we will tell of love for the homeland, of honor, hope and dignity, of truth, of the courage of the heart and the courage of the pen.
Who are the poets who turned their words into destiny?
Where does freedom end and where does revolution begin?
Can love be a revolution? Or can forgiveness bring freedom?
And above all - what is REVOLUTION?
In today's turbulent times The Poets Live and The Revolution is a performance about the memory of a nation.
Two evenings, dozens of the finest Bulgarian poems and the troupe of THE POETS:
Music: maestro Antoni Donchev
Set design: Mira Kalanova
Visual environment: Katrin Krasimirova and Ivaylo Chichanov
Audio environment: Kalin Nikolov
Production: Diana Aleksieva
Poster: Stefan Stefanov
The Poets Live - a project by InterviewTo
A living archive of the Bulgarian spirit comes to the stage in this special edition of The Poets Live, dedicated to the idea of revolution in all its forms — moral, civic, intimate. Expect a performance where spoken word and original music are built to breathe together, not as background and foreground but as equal forces that spark one another.
At the piano is maestro Antoni Donchev — a pillar of Bulgarian jazz, Grand Prix winner at Leverkusen’s European Jazz Competition with Acoustic Version, and longtime leader of the Bulgarian National Radio Big Band. His instinct for rhythm and silence shapes the pulse of the evening, guiding the actors through sudden whispers, marching cadences and lyrical stillness that let the verses ring.
The format has deep roots. The Poets began in 2017 as a video initiative from Interview.to, growing into The Poets Live after a first recording with actor Vlado Penev reading Dimcho Debelyanov at Sofia Airport captured the public imagination. Since then the project has drawn many of the country’s most recognizable stage and screen names to read classic and contemporary poems, often in large halls and under the open sky, proving that a hall can be filled by a single line well spoken.
Behind the visual world stands a team that treats poetry as scenography. Set designer Mira Kalanova brings a theatre-maker’s precision and the eye of a professor who heads the scenography program at NATFIZ. The multimedia textures and projections are crafted by Katrin Krasimirova — a visual artist with experience in opera and large-scale mapping — together with Ivaylo Chichanov, whose practice spans interactive media and design. The sound environment by Kalin Nikolov, a composer decorated with Askeer and Ikar theatre awards and known for film scores such as Zift, threads voices, piano and space into one acoustic frame.
What audiences notice
- The selection moves between canonical texts and unexpected rediscoveries, allowing you to hear familiar lines with new urgency.
- Music is not illustration; it argues with the words, consoles them, or challenges them — a dialogue that keeps the hall alert.
- Lighting and video are used sparingly and intelligently, turning a single performer and a microphone into a full landscape.
Language of performance: Bulgarian.
If you’re drawn to strong, text-driven stage work, you might also enjoy the one-man epic of 1920s Sofia in Chamkoria. Prefer a satirical look at national myths and rivalry? Try the witty football-and-identity comedy Don't Bet on the English. And for an evening that plays with reflection and point of view, see Mirror, Mirror.