City Theaters to open the curtain in October

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

City Theaters are set to open the new 2012-2013 season on Oct. 3.

At a press conference held yesterday at the Malta Köşk in Istanbul’s historical Yıldız Park, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality City Theaters General Art Director Hilmi Zafer Şahin provided information about the new season. He said they had new plans for disabled citizens in the new season and that the hearing-impaired citizens would be able to see all plays with surtitles on stage.

“They will be able to follow the dialogue on the stage. We will first use this application first at the Harbiye Theater in the play ‘Vişne Bahçesi’ [Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Garden’]. In the new season, the City Theaters will therefore bring theater to more disabled citizens.”

Şahin said that the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the City Theaters was approaching, and that this was an important landmark. “The City Theaters is the cultural accumulation of this city. We have only one goal: To make theater indispensable and to mobilize everyone for theater. I hope that we will make Istanbul a city of theaters and enable everyone to see theater plays in even the most remote parts of the city.”

He also said that the theme of the new season was “New writers, new plays.” “We have many new writers in our repertoire. Most of them will be staging their work for the first time in Turkish theaters,” Şahin said.