Five UNITER Nominations for the Harag György Company

The UNITER Awards are Romania’s most prestigious theatre honours, presented annually during a festive gala each spring. Last year, in Craiova, the Harag György Company received awards from the Romanian Theatre Association (UNITER) for the first time in its history. Out of the three nominations received for Richard III — Best Performance, Best Direction, and Best Leading Actor — the company won awards in the first two categories.

Recently, this year’s nominees were also announced, and the Harag György Company of the Northern Theatre in Satu Mare received five nominations.
The production SOPRO – Whispering in the Dark was nominated in the Best Performance category, while László Bocsárdi received a nomination in the Best Director category for directing the same production. Blanka Moldován was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and Zsolt Nagy Csongor received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, both for their performances in SOPRO – Whispering in the Dark.

The set and costume designers of The Master and Margarita (directed by Sardar Tagirovsky), Beáta V. Sós and Sára Katalin Mihály, were also nominated in the Best Visual Design category.
“It is a tremendous recognition and honour for the Harag György Company that our work is followed so closely, especially considering that Satu Mare is quite far from Bucharest. Under such circumstances, it is truly remarkable that people pay attention to us and follow our productions, often travelling great distances to see our performances. It is also quite rare for a company to receive this level of attention in the UNITER nominations two years in a row,” said István Bessenyei Gedő, director of the Harag György Company.

Outside professional circles, few people realize that even receiving a nomination is already a huge achievement, since the UNITER Awards involve two juries. One jury decides the nominations — which in itself is already a victory — while the second jury makes the final decision.

“Personally, as director, I am extremely happy about every nomination. I believe that the two actors singled out this year truly deserve this recognition because of the outstanding quality of their work. This applies both to Blanka Moldován and Zsolt Nagy Csongor — for the latter, this is already his second nomination in two years, after previously being nominated for the title role in Richard III. Naturally, I am also very pleased that we received nominations in the two most important main categories — Best Performance and Best Direction,” added the director.

“It is also a special joy that two talented young designers received UNITER nominations in connection with our production of The Master and Margarita. Imagining the visual world is one thing, but actually creating the set and costumes is another. Therefore, this recognition is also an important acknowledgement for the theatre workshops and for those working behind the scenes in production. It proves that this small team is capable of achieving great things,” the director concluded.

This year’s awards gala will take place on May 25 at the Odeon Theatre in Bucharest.