– The election of this year’s council has left its mark on the festival, and it will be exciting to see if people will notice that new forces have entered the programme. There is a generational change at the house, and therefore it will be a year with a lot of changes, says the PIT council, which consists of festival director Vibeke Lie, Heiki Eero Riipinen, Anette Hagnell, Lars Vik, Hans Petter Eliassen, Frida Winther and Marie Ursin.
The PIT council describes the changes as a delicious balance between what has been and what is to come. With new names, expressions and technology, they are excited to see where it can take them.
– We want more folk festivals in the streets. That is why there will be no performances on air this year, and that is due to several things. Firstly, it is expensive, it takes a lot of the budget that goes to the expense of the street programme. We want to be able to offer a large free programme, with several free performances, they clarify.
The festival starts on Wednesday 5 June, and it is Torbjørn Røe Isaksen who opens the festival at Ælvespeilet. Festivalgata opens on Thursday 6 June. There will be 14 companies from eight different countries that will leave their mark on Festivalgata, in addition to Norwegian companies.
This year, as last year, the Brusteinsballet will be put on Saturday, after they received positive feedback on this last year.
– It is best for everyone that it is on Saturday, so we will continue with that.
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Drop the bomb
Probably for the very first time since the PIT festival was first held 29 years ago, there will be no fireworks to end the festival.
– We have a tight budget, which is why we have made this choice. As mentioned, we would rather use the money we have on the street programme. In addition, there are environmental aspects here as well, where we aim to become a greener festival, they say and add:
– We know that there are some who will be disappointed, and changes are not easy. We are therefore ready to face some resistance. We must dare to take risks in order to grow, and be brave, says the festival manager.
– Next year the festival will be 30 years old and we will use this year to clean the palette for next year and prepare for what is to come. But, we listen to the audience, then we’ll see where we land.
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The PIT
Brand new this year is “The PIT”, which will be this year’s festival cafe and which will be at the free theatre.
– We want it to become a meeting place here at the theatre, and we therefore want to get the festival cafe going again. That is why the closing concert will be held at the Friteateret this year, and not at Café K. The Friteateret will be the festival pub, and we hope it will be a proper gathering place, they say.
Two-thirds of the tickets for this year’s theater festival have already been sold. This year they also have several big investments.
– Gob Squad has never been to PIT before, and they will perform “Is anybody home?”, which is something Porsgrunn has never seen before. This will be part of our major investment. In addition, Sundjordet Fritidsteater has decided to bet on William Shakespeare’s most played play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which will be another big investment for us, concludes the PIT Council.
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