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University of SC Theatre Professor Takes An Original Piece Back Home... To Romania

Design professor Nic Ularu has traveled from South Carolina to New York and all the way to Romania to share his original work, “The Cherry Orchard Sequel.” The play was most recently performed in Cluj in the Transylvanian region of Romania at The National Theatre of Cluj.

“The Cherry Orchard Sequel” was first performed as a preview at Theatre South Carolina in January, 2008.  It then moved on to premiere at the highly regarded La MaMa Experimental Theatre club in New York in February, 2008, where it received rave reviews.  The New York Times chose the production as a “critic’s pick,” praising it as a “sparkling surprise,” and Variety summed it up as “just good, enigmatic storytelling.”

Romanian reactions were equally positive. The Romanian magazine, Luceafarul, commented that “it is throughout a spirit of caricature, that makes the great conflicts of the past, memories worthy of laughter,” adding that the show’s “humor, both literary and theatrical” comes just in time. Art Act theatre company summarized the play as “an intriguing original theatrical work.”

Ularu received an invitation to stage “The Cherry Orchard Sequel” at The National Theatre in the spring of 2009 as a co-production between the Lucian Blaga National Theatre of Cluj-Napoca and the Art Act Theatre Company. The show made its Romanian premiere on October 29th, 2009.

Nic directs an actor in the Romanian production of The Cherry Orchard Sequel

 

A native of Bucharest, Romania, Nic has major design credits in both America and Europe, including theatres in such places as Sweden, Northern Ireland, and his home country.  He was a board member for four years of The European League of the Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) in Amsterdam.  Before coming to USC, he taught at Smith College and was a visiting professor at the Universities of Tennessee, Minnesota, and Texas. Ularu also received an OBIE Award for outstanding achievements in Off-Broadway production in New York.

 

 

The National Theatre of Cluj was built in 1904 and was designed by the Austrian architects Helmer and Fellper.  With an exquisite neo-baroque style auditorium, the theatre is one of the most prominent theatrical establishments in Romania.

 

 

 

 

-- article co-written by Melissa Goodfellow, Junior Theatre major