Bulandra sala liviu ciulei biography

Sala Liviu Ciulei is one of the two performing locations of the Bulandra Theater and is located in a historic building on Bulevardul Schitu Măgureanu on the northern bank of the Dâmbovița River in Bucharest. It was the first location and still functions as the main theater building and headquarters.

The building was constructed between 1923 and 1926 and has a Neo-Romanian syle with Art Deco elements and a corner turret. Before the inception of the Bulandra Theater, it housed the League for the Cultural Unit of Romanians, a cultural youth group. At that time, the building was called the Palace of the Cultural League. It also housed the editorial office of The Romanian Nation (Neamul Românesc), a magazine published under the guidance of Nicolae Iorga.

The Bulandra Theater was founded as the Municipal Theater (Teatrul Municipului) in 1947. Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra, one of the leading stage actresses of her generation, was appointed as its first director. Later it was renamed the Lucia Sturdza Bulandra Theater, which was subsequently shortend to Bulandra Theater.

Later, a second location, Sala Toma Caragiu, was opened next to the Icon’s Garden.

In 1991, the Bulandra Theater became a member of the Union of European Theaters, which was founded in 1990.

In 2011, the main theater building on Măgureanu Boulevard was named after the theater and film director and actor Liviu Ciulei, who was the director of the Bulandra Theater between 1963 and 1972.

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The Bulandra Theatre (Romanian: Teatrul Bulandra) in Bucharest, Romania was founded in 1947 as Teatrul Municipal; its first director was Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra, one of the leading Romanian stage actresses of her generation. Liviu Ciulei was director between 1963 and 1972; one of the most important directors since then was Ștefan Iordănescu (1999–2002), who restructured the theatre management. From 2002 until his death in 2019, the theatre was directed by Alexandru Darie; as of 2020, the director is Vlad Zamfirescu.

Since 1991, the Bulandra Theatre has been a member of the Union of European Theatres, which was founded in March 1990. The theatre currently has two stages, located about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) apart from one another: Sala Liviu Ciulei, the former Sala Izvor (renovated 2002) near the Dâmbovița River, not far from the southwest corner of Cișmigiu Gardens; and Sala Toma Caragiu (renovated 2003), about half a kilometer southeast of Piața Romană, just east of the Grădina Icoanei park.

Originally Teatrul Municipal, the theatre later acquired the name Teatrul Lucia Sturdza Bulandra, now shortened to Teatrul Bulandra. The present Sala Liviu Ciulei (Izvor) was and remains the headquarters, housing offices as well as the actual theatre space. The main teatre building has been renamed in 2011 after the previous head of Bulandra Theatre, film and theatre director and actor Liviu Ciulei. Before Communist times, the second hall, located by Grădina Icoanei and designed by architect Ion Mincu, was the auditorium of a private school, Școala Centrală de Fete (Central Girls' School), located on Icoanei Street. After nationalization, the hall was first renamed after Filimon Sârbu, then later took its present name, in memory of actor Toma Caragiu.

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The famous Romanian director, described by Newsweek as “one of the boldest and most challenging figures on the international scene”, would have turned 100 this year.

Born 100 years ago on July 7, the multidisciplinary Liviu Ciulei, who would be called by Newsweek “one of the boldest and most challenging figures on the international scene”, directed theatre and film, was an actor, writer and architect, and created film sets and costumes.

As a director, he brought a political perspective to the classic texts he staged. Don Shewey wrote of him in The New York Times that “although he shares with such iconoclastic directors as Peter Sellars and Andrei Serban a desire to bring as much of the contemporary world onstage as possible, he was professionally trained as an architect before he became a leading actor and director in the Romanian theater, and an architect's lucidity remains the paramount virtue of his work. He begins by re-examining each play microscopically and then creating, line-by-line, a fresh interpretation”.

The same talent was also conveyed in his films, made in parallel with his theatre performances. In the 1950s he began his career as a screenwriter, and in 1957 he made his debut as a film director with Eruption. Three years later he returned with Waves of the Danube, based on a screenplay by Francisc Munteanu and Titus Popovici, casting Irina Petrescu in her first role and featuring future director Lucian Pintilie, who considered him “the smartest man he has ever met”. Although these productions sold over seven million tickets, European acknowledgement came only in 1964 with The Forest of the Hanged, adapted from Liviu Rebreanu. Of the final scene in his masterpiece, Ciulei said it was the best he had ever filmed. “I wanted the final scene to be different because I want to get the award at Cannes”. A year later, his wish came true: