A Drama of Unlived Stories: Old Child by GalataPerform By Eylem Ejder Arab Stages, Volume 7 (Fall, 2017) ©2017 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications
Founded in 2003 by Yeşim Özsoy, GalataPerform is one of the foremost theatre and performance companies in Istanbul, Turkey. Taking its name from the historical place Galata, where the company is located, GalataPerform is known for its projects such as New Text, New Theatre, and the Visibility Project. GalataPerform has organized different kinds of projects, festivals, and workshops to support new playwrights and directors. The most important are the workshops for new playwrights, and thanks to these activities, many plays have been staged in festivals organized by the company, or at the Istanbul International Theatre Festival. In this way, GalataPerfom aims to become a home base for new writers and directors. Yeşim Özsoy, the artistic director of the company, wants theatres to encourage playwrights to create new narratives with a focus upon Turkish political, historical, and everyday life problems. The best-known productions of the group are İz (2013), written by Ahmet Sami Özbudak, who has received both national and international awards, Dil (Language, 2014), written by Şenay Tanrıvermiş, and Kabuk (2015), written by Ayşıl Akşehirli. İz and Dil were directed by Yeşim Özsoy and Kabuk was directed by Mine Çerçi, co-founder of Cloud Theatre.
The company’s most recent productions were Yaşlı Çocuk (Old Child, 2016), written and directed by Yeşim Özsoy, and Balat Monologlar Müzesi (Balat Monologues Museum, 2016), including five monologues and two short plays, written and directed by different new writers and directors under the project coordinator Ahmet Sami Özbudak (also the assistant director of Old Child). Balat Monologlar Müzesi was staged in an unusual theatre space—in an old, abandoned historical school which has been transformed into a kind of museum. All of these productions were staged in Istanbul.
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