The three decade long event will kick off at Havana’s Avellaneda Theater with the show Anna Karenina by Russia’s 90-year-old Academic Evgueni Vajtangov State Theater Company.  Plays and groups from 19 countries are scheduled to participate, including Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, the United States, China, France and others.

The Cuban provinces will also be represented at the International Theater Festival, including Freddys Núñez and his company Teatro del Viento with Adiós y Welcome that joins together two outstanding Cuban plays El último bolero and Weekend en Bahía in a single show.

The Hermanos Saiz Young Artists Association in western Matanzas brings Antigone, and also from Matanzas comes the company Teatro de Las Estaciones, masterly directed by Rubén Darío Salazar, with Alicia en busca del conejo blanco (Alice Searching for the White Rabbit). D’Morón Teatro also brings Troya, una leyenda de barro (Troy, a Clay Legend). Other companies from south central Cienfuegos, eastern Las Tunas and other provinces will be on hand.

The theater extravaganza will premiere the show Anna Karenina in Havana, showing the aesthetic precepts of once Moscow’s Art Theater Director, Evgueni Vajtangov, who said that each show must be a party, if there is no party there is no show. During his time Vajtangov was considered the best teacher of the Stanislavsky System, to whom the festival is dedicated on the 150th anniversary of his birth. 

Theoretical events are also scheduled for the cultural gathering, including a puppet theater panel, workshops and the International Theater Institute Board of Directors Meeting.