Dance, Edita, Dance

Rimantas Kmita was nominated for the Golden Stage Cross (2026) for the dramaturgy of the production “Dance, Edita, Dance.” Have you ever felt as if you suddenly no longer understood the script your life was following, or what genre of story you had landed in? Are you the protagonist, or just a supporting character in someone else’s film? That is exactly how Edita feels. “Dance, Edita, Dance” is a tragicomic story about a young woman, Edita, who works at a video rental shop in the early years of independence and tries to understand her place in the world by watching films. In Edita’s imagination, life is a film—she just does not yet know what genre. Sometimes she is a fighter, sometimes a romantic heroine, and sometimes a lonely teenager lost between Hollywood dreams and the reality of Šiauliai. At the heart of the production is Edita’s obsessive love for a young man who has no idea how she feels. Like the novel “Pietinia kronikas,” Rimantas Kmita’s new play balances comedy with a sensitive, sincere exploration of its subject. With gentle humor, it reveals how a young woman’s identity takes shape when there are no clear models—when American films mingle with post-Soviet reality, and free-market ideas with old, still-unhealed traumas. Making her theatre debut, renowned film director and screenwriter of “Pietinia kronikas,” Eglė Vertelytė, makes use of cinematic elements. Screen projections and filmed sequences blend with live action and choreographer Airida Gudaitė’s interpretations of the film “Dirty Dancing.” The director invites the audience to watch the events onstage as if they were “films” created in Edita’s imagination. The audience finds itself between two worlds—reality and fantasy, everyday traumas and cinematic dreams. Is it possible to live through reality without retreating into fantasies? Is it possible, among pirated VHS tapes, to make an original film of your own life? The production is like an extension of the novel “Pietinia kronikas” on the theatre stage, but here it tells Edita’s version of the story. Edita is played by Vaidilė Juozaitytė, one of the most promising young-generation actresses from Šiauliai, who also played Edita in the screen adaptation of the novel, which achieved great popularity. Her stage partner is Valstybinis Šiaulių dramos teatras actor Tautvydas Galkauskas. And, of course, the production is performed in authentic Šiauliai dialect. Premiere: 5 and 6 June 2025.

AWARDS: At the 42nd professional theatre festival “Teatro genas,” BEST ACTRESS was awarded to Vaidilė Juozaitytė for her role as Edita (Rokiškis, March 2026). At the 17th Dalia Tamulevičiūtė Professional Theatre Festival, playwright Rimantas Kmita received the award for best Lithuanian text for theatre (Varėna, October 2026).

REVIEW:
IN THE PRESS:

General season sponsor:
General production sponsor:
Funded by: