Turkish State Theaters reopen with open-air play

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Turkish State Theaters, which have been closed for nearly four months as part of measures to curtail the COVID-19 outbreak, reopened on July 2 as the first performance took place at the open-air Macunköy Campus in the capital Ankara within the “Open Air Summer Plays” festival.

The play named “Around the World in Eighty Days” was prepared for the stage by the Istanbul State Theater.

“It is the first time in State Theaters that we perform an open-air play. We will continue this until Aug. 15,” said Mustafa Kurt, the head of the State Theaters, at his opening speech.

“We have taken all precautions. We screen the body temperatures of the audience at the entrance and hand out face masks,” added the directorate.

Within the “Open Air Summer Plays” festival, the İzmir and Antalya State Theaters will perform two other plays after a weeklong performance of the Istanbul State Theater.

“The state theater of the northwestern province of Bursa will perform open-air plays in their region by July 17,” Kurt said, adding that their new project “Truck Theater” has just started and artists would perform plays on the mobile truck designed as a stage and meet with audience in the eastern provinces of Turkey on a 50-day tour in 25 cities.