Marijana Petrović: "Duško Radović" Little Theater is characterized by diversity

Actress Marijana Petrović, laureate of this year's "Little Prince" Lifetime Achievement Award, for her outstanding contribution to the development of culture and performing arts for children, presented the book "Little Theater Duško Radović - 70 Years of Diversity (monograph 1949-2019)" which she edited, and her author's book "On Actor with a Puppet", as part of the accompanying program of the 29 th International Children's Theater Festival Subotica.

The monograph "Duško Radović - 70 Years of Diversity" was created on the occasion of this great jubilee of the Little Theater "Duško Radović" in Belgrade. "The concept of the monograph is quite unusual, because it does not only talk about the performances with accompanying photos and historical data that have been printed before, but I have divided it into several blocks that I consider very important. Duško Radović Little Theater is characterized by its diversity, satisfying different target groups. There has always been a puppet scene, so a children's drama scene grew. Then we got to the evening stage, then the same stage for youth, and finally the stage for babies. Each of these scenes within the monograph is described by different authors," Marijana Petrović pointed out.

The author of the book stated that this extensive monograph contains, among other things, excerpts from reviews, lists of performances, manifestations and awards, photos and names of those who currently work in the theater. "I think that from this material you can conclude a lot about the creators and the way of working in the theater, but also about my opinion on how children's theaters should work" concluded Marijana Petrović.

This year's laureate of the "Little Prince" Award also presented her book "On Actor with a Puppet", two parts of which are dedicated to the famous puppet artist Sergey Obrastsov, while the third deals with the work of an actor with a puppet in contemporary theater. "This is a view from the inside, from the core of the problem, from the stage, of an actress who writes based on her acting and animation experience and work on plays with puppets by various techniques, and not only from her theatrical or spectator’s experience. She verifies, discusses or refutes established views and proposes a new way of thinking about her topic", says the reviewer of the book Dr. Sava Anđelković.

Marijana Petrović dedicated two parts of the book to the famous Sergej Obrascov, one of the greatest puppet artists of the 20 th century. About the work on the book, she said: "I read all his books in Russian, and then I compiled his life story, thoughts about theater in general and puppet theater. If I have already decided to write about the relationship between the actor and the puppet, I think that he was the most ideal as an example, because he was the first to introduce the Stanislavsky system to the puppet stage. People often forget this because they talk about him as an animator, actor, director and writer, but the most important thing is just that. Stanislavsky is the foundation of everything".

The author stated that the second part of the book tells about what our relevant cultural and public workers and top artists, who watched Obrascov in their young days or later, said about him.

The third part of the book talks about the work of an actor with a puppet in a contemporary puppet theater. "Of course we see distinction between the theater of the East and the West, and I'm talking about the Western theater that we know best. There, I found many segments concerning concrete practical work, starting with Stanislavsky's system as the alphabet of acting art", said Marijana Petrović.

Marijana Petrović (Belgrade, 1957) graduated from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, (Yugoslav literature and Serbo-Croatian language), and received her master's degree from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Department of Theatrology. Since 1978, she has been permanently engaged as an actress in the "Duško Radović" Little Theater in Belgrade, where she also directs. She is the laureate of many acting awards: Biennial of Yugoslav Puppetry in Bugojno, Yugoslav Children's Festival Kotor, Serbian Puppet Theaters Gathering, Milena Načić, Božidar Valtrović...

As a teacher, she taught at the "Lujo Davičo" secondary ballet school - the organization of stage and music activities. She designed a seminar intended for teachers, pedagogues and psychologists, organized by the Ministry of Education and Sports of the Republic of Serbia in 2001 at the Faculty for Teachers in Belgrade, on the subject of puppetry in elementary school, and held lectures and exercises as part of it. In 2011, within the project of the Center for Theater Research ApsArt intended for the education of FASPER students, she realized workshops on the topic: Use of Puppets for Therapeutic Purposes. She also realized author's projects for children as a collaborator in Školigrica (Cultural Center Stari Grad), in the Children's Cultural Center Belgrade (puppet games as part of a workshop for babies up to 3 years old), collaborated with the Center for Museum Didactics as an actor and author. She is a member of Assitej and Cedeum.