BIO
Elena Morar is a Bucharest-based freelance theatre director. Born in 1986, she completed her graduate studies – MBA in Theatre Directing in 2011 at UNATC, Bucharest. Since then, she has been active in both independent and state theatre companies and is a frequent collaborator of Opera de Lyon and Comic Opera of Bucharest as an assistant director and stage manager. Her most recent performances, based mostly on contemporary plays or devised work by romanian playwrights, center on themes such as family, identity, social issues, relationships and transformations (Venus in Fur, My father, the priest, School feat Cool etc) and were showcased in national festivals. She has recently started developing her own writing for the stage as part of the Drama V playwriting residency in Cluj, 2020.
PROJECT: Tender Is the Night
Diana and Lea are two Bucharest-based sisters, one of whom is relocating soon in another country. The night before Diana’s immigration departure, she organizes a farewell get together with her friends and colleagues, during which she has a massive fallout with Lea, who leaves early. Their initial plan of quality sister time is ruined and Diana spends much of her evening disenchanted by her sister’s stormy departure.
Unaware of Lea’s whereabouts and increasingly worried of what might have happened to her – fueled by Lea’s tantrums in the past -, Diana abandons her friends and embarks on a mission to find her sister that night. Her long journey into the night brings her unexpected encounters, nightlife detours, and most of all, a sense of discovering for the first time who her sister is and what her universe looks like. She sees the city through the eyes of Lea, for whom she gets mistaken more than once – while she reevaluates what family bonds mean for her. In the meantime, Lea is still nowhere to be found. The two reunite improbably in the last place Diana would have looked for her.
