Rafael Pérez Malo, vice president of the National Performing Arts Council, announced during a press conference that companies from 19 countries will participate - more information on these groups in our next issue – and that the festival will include a total of 76 events, among them monologues, performance art, grand musicals, classic plays, others by emerging playwrights, with new technology and equipment complementing the stagecraft, as well as outdoor presentations.

In Havana, visiting and Cuban artists will perform in 21 venues, plazas and parks, while international companies will additionally be featured in some seven provincial theaters.

Pérez Malo announced a pre-opening event, October 24, on the National Theater’s broad entrance stairway, a 45-minute performance by the Compañía D’Morón of Homer’s Iliad, their second work using the clay technique debuted in Troya - Una leyenda de barro.

Immediately thereafter, in the National Theater’s Avellaneda Hall, the Evgueni Vajtangov State Academic Theater will debut with Anna Karenina, a performance of 2:20 hours with intermission, staged as a musical based on the Tolstoy novel.

A quick review of the schedule for Cuban companies reveals ambitious artistic standards, in a varied, attractive program, including all tendencies within Cuban theater - drama, performance art, dance, pantomime, shadow theater and a significant representation of one-person shows.

Companies were chosen based on prizes received for recent performances, including, among others, the Villanueva critic’s award. It is noteworthy that works by four National Theater Prize winners are scheduled.

One of these, dramaturge José Milián and his Pequeño Teatro de La Habana, will present El Flaco y el Gordo, by Virgilo Piñera, with Alejandro Rodríguez and Fabián Mora. "The class, ontological and philosophical confrontations which, in a hospital, imply wild dialogues between the fortunate Gordo (Fat man) and the poor devil Flaco (Skinny), can be appreciated in a staging in which the director emphasizes Virgilian absurdity as a variant of our identity."

The second National Prize winner participating is José Fernández, director of Teatro Papalote, with Se durmió en los laureles, a show in which two clowns and puppeteers alternate in an entertaining performance.

Also in this category is actor Pancho García, who has renovated La Legionaria, an old prostitute who recalls fragments of her life during an interview. The excellent one-person show based on the Fernando Quiñones novel of the same name is directed by Susana Alonso.

The fourth National Prize winner, distinguished director Nelson Dorr with his Cia company, is revisiting William Shakespeare’s Othello - a standard work of universal theater which Dorr is presenting "with the conviction that younger generations must know and be familiar with indispensable, classic titles and writers, to be able to appreciate the performing arts of all times."

Two of the most interesting directors on Cuba’s scene, not to be missed during the Festival, offered brief statements to Granma International. The Teatro Público’s successful director Carlos Díaz has become one of the most celebrated.

"In the case of our Trianón Theater, we are happy to be a teaching site for the Advanced Institute of Art; their most recent graduating class will open the Festival in our theater with The Cherry Orchard, by Chekhov, a performance with capable young actors who are going to make their mark in Cuban theater.

"Then we will have a work which I did on commission in Geneva with a Swiss company, Apsara Theater, the piece No es tiempo de sirenas, with two Spanish actresses, Silvia Barreiro and Margarita Sánchez. It addresses the issue of emigration, two Latinas who arrive in Geneva to star in a cabaret and realize they had been brought to work as prostitutes.

"We have Ana en el trópico, a co-prodution with FUNDarte and Teatro El Público, based on the writing of Nilo Cruz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. It is a strong cast, which is developing a very good chemistry, bringing together actors and actresses resident in Cuba and in the United States: Fernando Hechevarría, Alexis Díaz de Villegas, Lillian Rentería, Mabel Roch, Osvaldo Doimeadiós, Clara González, Carlos Miguel Caballero and Yanier Palmero.

"Antigonon, un contingente épico, which is showing now, will be the closing piece. Now with five characters, rather than the initial two." The one hour, 20 minute piece with a script by Rogelio Orizondo features the confluence of dance, poetry and performance art."

Also speaking with GI was director Carlos Celdrán, director of the Argos Teatro, presenting Fíchenla si pueden, a version of The Respectful Prostitute by Jean-Paul Sartre, with actress Yuliet Cruz in the role of Lizi.

"It is a work which has always interested me because I saw it as having a great deal of potential for dialogue about our problems. I had put it off for years because there was a Cuban version, very well-known by audiences. I found a reflection of our reality in the script. It’s an adaptation because there is some re-writing of the original, some manipulation to place it within the context which I want in order to reflect on tolerance, on the actions of power. It is part of an investigation I have been conducting these last few years about space and the actor. Reduced spaces, human hells. Strong, intense relations, in very closed spaces. It is a work stripped of all artful acting devices, and creates a closeness with the audience, in a chamber theater."

"It’s always mammoth, but this is related to its essence, trying to admit all those who can and want to come. Given the economic dimension, it is very democratic. I believe, as well, that it’s an act of generosity, that all those who can come, and have the quality, may be admitted. It is a very large Festival, but provides the opportunity for dramatists and audiences to encounter other visions."

Cuban performers will present dozens of shows, too many to list, but to mention a few for children: Alicia (En busca del conejo blanco) by the Teatro de Las Estaciones (Matanzas); Teatro Tuyo (Las Tunas), using a clown presents Narices (2012 Villanueva Critics’ Prize) and Teatro La Comarca (Camagüey) with Andando X la sombrita, an entertaining work using shadow theater techniques.

For adults: Delantal todo sucio de huevo and El baile, both from the D´Dos company; Adiós y Welcome, Teatro del Viento (Camagüey) and Rapsodia para el mulo, by El Ciervo encantado.

Julio César Ramírez, the Festival’s artistic director, emphasized that the encounter is "a celebration, because theater must be nothing less than enjoyment."