From musicals to post drama at Daugavpils Theatre

Sitting on the eastern border of the European Union, Daugavpils Theatre maintains the area’s multicultural traditions with performances in four languages. Its productions range from musicals to dance and post drama, spanning traditional and avant-garde.

Established in 1857, Daugavpils Theatre is one of the oldest professional theatres in Latvia, as well as the only permanent professional theatre in the Latgale region. The theatre was founded and maintained by the chief engineer of Daugavpils Fortress, Nikolay Hagelstrom, an avid theatre lover.

Daugavpils, originally called Dinaburg, is located 220 kilometres from Latvia’s capital Riga and only a few kilometres from Lithuania, Belarus and Russia, in a region called Latgale. Operating on the eastern border of the European Union, the theatre maintains the area’s multicultural traditions and stages plays in Latvian, Russian, English and Latgalian, the local language.

Amongst Daugavpils Theatre’s celebrated performances is Macbeth, the tragedy by William Shakespeare, in collaboration with British actor, director and Shakespeare scholar Paul Goodwin. Another stand-out production is Two in the Kitchen, not Counting the Corpse, an almost criminal comedy based on Mothers and Daughters by Ukrainian playwright Aleksander Mardan.

Dance performance They Shoot Horses, based on motives of Horace McCoy’s novel and inspired by Sydney Pollack’s movie They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, was nominated for Latvia’s Dance Award 2023-2024. And contemporary performance Someone Is Going to Come by John Fosse received the Latgalian culture award Bonuks. This was a co-operation with the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Riga and the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia.

Theatre festival celebrating Latgale

From 3-7 June, Theatre Festival #4 will take place in Daugavpils. The organisers share the belief that during times of societal division caused by economic and political upheavals, theatre is the perfect place for people to meet, listen to diverse voices, and imagine a better future together.

“The festival’s focus is change, both internal and external,” says Oleg Shaposhnikov, artistic director at Daugavpils Theatre. “This year’s slogan, Latgale is Close, symbolises a call to shift the perception of this region. It’s a reminder to both visitors and locals that Latgale is neither unreachable nor foreign in the context of Latvia and Europe.”

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