Boyan Arsov: I am (not) what I am!

In just two days, the youngest winner of the Icarus Theater Award – Boyan Arsov, will take to the stage of the Azaryan Theater in the premiere performance “Othello – the Doom of the Idealist”. However, the fragile body of the 27-year-old assistant of Prof. Tankovska at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts and Sciences will bring together two of the most voluminous emotional images in world drama – Shakespeare’s Othello and Iago. The production is by the independent ZONG Theater, which Boyan founded with director Dina Markova. Their first project “Life is a Dream” brings them the “Icarus” for the main male role and for their debut in directing.

Almost the same team will take the stage with “Othello…”, a production in which on October 5 we will also see Vyara Kolarova as the black emcee, Nadya Keranova (Boyan’s student) as Desdemona and a few younger guys who have just graduated from the Academy. “It is very important to create a team, especially in these independent projects. If there is a bond and everyone thinks and works in the same direction, they cancel out the troubles,” says Boyan Arsov.

The actor believes that theater should genuinely excite and be placed in the context in which we live at this very moment. That is why he and Markova are adapting Shakespeare's classic text and its universal conclusions. They have been working on the project since December, because its original premiere was scheduled for June. The pandemic changed their plans, giving them this irreplaceable luxury called time. In the two days between our meeting and the publication of the interview with Boyan Arsov, it turned out that the premiere of “Othello…” was sold out and anyone who wants to see the performance will be able to do so only in a month, on November 3.

In addition to developing the ZONG Theater, Boyan Arsov is a full-time actor at the Satirical Theater, participates in several of the greatest musicals of the Sofia Opera - “Mamma Mia!”, “Shrek”, “Les Miserables”, teaches at the Academy and is working on a doctoral degree. Unexpectedly sincere, self-critical and modest, I met Boyan for a cup of coffee under the light Sofia rain and from his first word it became clear that this boy breathes and exists with the theater, irrevocably attracted by “the living presence, the creation of unreal and at the same time real worlds on stage”. Here is what else Boyan Arsov himself shared with licata.bg.

LINK TO THE FULL ARTICLE: LICATA.BG