The penultimate theater performance of this year’s 64th edition of the “Ohrid Summer” festival will be held tonight at the “Grigor Prlichev” Cultural Center, starting at 9 PM. The play is “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” based on the novel by Ken Kesey, directed by Žanko Tomić, and performed by the Belgrade Drama Theatre from Serbia.
The performance marks the grand return of Dragan Bjelogrlić to the stage of the Belgrade Drama Theatre in this legendary, darkly humorous satire about an individual in a repressive system, mental institutions, and the freedom of the spirit. The drama was written in 1962, with its first performance in 1963 on Broadway, featuring Kirk Douglas in the lead role.
The cast includes Dragan Bjelogrlić, Predrag Bjelac, Milan Čučilović, Daniel Sič, Milutin Mima Karadžić, Mladen Sovilj, Jovo Maksić, Savo Radović, Dušan Kovačević, Vladan Milić, Milica Zarić, Andrea Đina, Uroš Janković, Miloš Lazarov, Zoran Đorđević, Anka Gaćeša, Aleksandra Anja Alač, Nada Macanković, and Maja Ranđić.
Director Žanko Tomić was born in Skopje, Macedonia. As a resident of Serbia, he graduated in theater and radio directing in 1997 from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. In 1995, he graduated in Serbian language and Yugoslav literature from the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad.
He has directed over fifteen theater productions, five of which were in the Serbian National Theater in Belgrade, Subotica, Vršac, Herceg Novi, and the USA. In the last two years, according to theater critics’ surveys, he has been ranked among the five most successful directors. He has directed four radio dramas produced by Radio Belgrade. He was the editor of the drama program at the “Belgrade Summer” festival in 1997. He co-founded the independent theater group Torpedo in 1997 and the Yorick troupe. He participated in organizing the founding assembly of the Association of Dramatic Artists of Serbia. He is a member of the commission of the Association of Dramatic Artists of Serbia for drafting the theater law. From 1990 to 1993, he collaborated on the drama program at the Cultural Center in Novi Sad. He is a translator from English of numerous dramatic texts and literature. He is involved in theater studies and language theory (with a scholarly work titled “Discourse Analysis of the Director-Actor Conversation”). Recently, he has been writing articles and columns on theater topics for the magazines *Ludus* and *Scene*. He worked as an editor for the weekly *Europe*.