The world premiere at the Theatre Archa started a journey of the latest play by Václav Havel to other stages both in the Czech Republic and abroad. The first onstage event in the Czech Republic will be the rehearsed reading at the Goose on a String Theatre in Brno on September 11, with the author present. The first new full production will open on October 11 at Klicpera Theatre in Hradec Králové (director will be Andrej Krob); just before Christmas there will be a premiere at Jihočeské Theatre in České Budějovice (December 19, production directed by Martin Glaser) followed closely by J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen (December 20, director Jan Burian). In the meantime, fragments of Leaving will be incorporated into the stage collage Circus Havel by the director Vladimír Morávek that will open at Brno's Goose on the String Theatre on November 7. The Těšín Theatre will premiere the play on October 11; the production, directed by Zbygniew Czarnecki will be first ever in the Czech Republic of the play's translation (by Andrzej Jagodzinski).
The first production abroad will open already on September 19 at the Orange Tree Theatre in London. (The official "Press night gala" with Havel present will take place on September 26). The text, translated by Paul Wilson will be directed by the venue's founder and Artistic Director Sam Walters, who consistently premiered productions of Václav Havel's plays in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He will dedicate Orange Tree's whole Autumn season to Havel: after Leaving he will put on a double bill of The Mountain Hotel and the enduringly popular one act play, Audience (opening October 29 and also directed by Sam Walters) and another evening of two one-act plays, Private View and Protest (November 10). Havel's one-act plays were among the most successful productions at the Orange Tree at the turn of 1970s and 80s. At the occasion of the play production, the text will be published in book form by Faber & Faber.
The next production abroad will open in Slovakia: the premiere at the Slovak National Theatre is scheduled for November 22. The translation is by Milan Lasica, the play will be directed by Peter Mikulík and the lead role of Rieger will be performed by Marián Labuda.
The Polish premiere will take place in the Ateneum Theatre in Warsaw on November 29. There was already a rehearsed reading of the play on June 19; it was presented by the daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, and the theatre magazine Dialog who publishes the text. It was sadly the last work by the director Piotr Łazarkiewicz who died suddenly the day after the reading.
Aura-Pont already signed a contract with Rowohlt Verlag Agency on publishing and performing the play in Germany (the premiere of the German translation by Joachim Bruss is scheduled for March 2009 in Aachen).
Theatre Komedija in Zagreb bought the rights for a production in Croatia. The play, translated by Dagmar Ruljančić and directed by Nina Kleflin, will open in October 2009 at the very latest.
Meanwhile, the Festival Erasmus in the town of ´s-Hertogenbosch prepares a rehearsed reading in a Dutch translation by Richard Ernest and Edgar de Bruin for November 9, 2008. The Festival is linked to the annual ceremony of awarding the Erasmus Prize; in 1986 the Prize went to Václav Havel.
A possible Russian premiere will also be preceded by both a rehearsed reading scheduled for September 2008 for the New Drama (Novaya Drama) Festival in Moscow and a December publication in the prestigious literary magazine, Inostrannaja Literatura.
Talks are underway for productions in New York, there is a serious interest from the Montenegro's National Theatre in Podgorica and from several theatres in France, Italy, Netherlands, Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia, Sweden and Poland. The play will be published in France (Gallimard Publishers), Hungary, and Ukraine and - in Chinese translation - in Taiwan.