Teatar Tirena - CROATIA

The Tirena Theater was founded in 1997 and is in the Theater Register of the Ministry of Culture, and its programs have the recommendation of the Agency for Education. He is a member of the Croatian center ASSITEJ.

Tirena's activities can be divided into three activities -

• theater,
• drama studio,
• and educational activities.

Tirena Theatre is a performing arts company for children and young people that work across several fields of interest: devised performances, theatre-in-education, drama studio theatre workshops, and book publishing.

Since 1997, when it was founded, it has staged 35 performances, 12 of them interactive. One of Tirena’s specialties is a theatre in education and throughout the years, DIE and TIE programs produced by the company have tackled many different subjects - bullying, addiction, peer pressure, environmental awareness, tolerance, xenophobia, sex, etc…

As a professional theatre company that produces performances for children and young people, Tirena’s aim is to stage original work by contemporary playwrights or devised by an ensemble assembled for a specific performance. There is a number of artists across disciplines who regularly work for the company (directors, actors, media artists, costume and set designers, etc.).

Tirena’s drama studio has more than 200 students (age 6-30) enrolled in 20 drama groups that meet on a weekly basis and during summer, it organizes a Theatre Camp, which is about to be presented in its fourteenth edition. Theatre Camp takes place in Pazin and Zagreb and it offers many different drama/theatre workshops for children, students, and adults working with children and young people.

Through drama, they prepare for inclusion in the world of adults and get acquainted with the art of drama. Children and young people from Tirena have participated in European drama meetings in Finland, Israel, Ireland, Russia, Hungary, Belgium, Turkey, Great Britain, Switzerland, and Denmark, as well as in a number of European projects. Drama groups play their plays at the Tirenafest Days and festivals for children and young people. We regularly participate in SKAZ and ASSITEJ's festival of professionally-led groups for children and youth.

Over the years, over 50 texts written by young people and their leaders have been premiered at Tirenafest. Some of the texts were published in the collections of plays "Maštoplov",

“Panic in Strahograd” and “Chaos before the premiere”.

Drama pedagogues from Tirena attended various workshops and meetings, including several World IDEA congresses, and Tirena is one of the partners in the EDERED organization.

Young people from Tirena’s drama groups have taken part in various international projects.

Tirena is also very active in affirming drama pedagogy throughout Croatia.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

- In 2019, our founder Ines Škuflić-Horvat received an award for lasting contribution to the development of drama and theater education and pedagogy in Croatia awarded by HCDO (Croatian Center for Drama Education)

- 2019. Drama pedagogue Maja Sviben is at the 21st Meeting professionally run theaters for children and youth ASSITEJ received the award for drama pedagogical work "Star Ladika" based on the play "Invisible Cities"

- 2015. play drama studio "Eat beans! Intimate confession of soldiers without sword and shield ” played at FZKA as one of the 5 best performances of the city of Zagreb

- In 2014, the play of the drama studio "Without a Third" was chosen to represent the city of Zagreb at the 54th Festival of Croatian Amateur Theater. - 17th Zagreb Amateur Theater

Festival 2013 - awards for the best play, best author's play, and best actor in the play "Life with an unknown number of unknowns" - 2011 HCDO award for special contribution to drama education, for systematic multi-year education of youth and drama pedagogues in the programs of the Theater Camp - Eco-play " Adventures of Bag and Trash" won the award for the best project in the category of corporate social responsibility in 2009.

- At the 20th International Festival of Author's Poetics - award for effective theatrical education of young people

- At the 21st International Festival of Author's Poetics - award for the development of the imaginative concept of educational theater

Our projects have so far been financed by European Cultural Foundation, Ministry of Culture, Open Society Institute, City of Zagreb - City Office for Education, Culture and Sports, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Physical Planning, Office for Human Rights, Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, Ministry of Family, Veterans' Affairs and Intergenerational Solidarity, Nova Banka, INA, Zagrebačka Banka, Istarska županija, National Foundation for Civil Society Development, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the City of Pazin.