Olga Zecheva is a Bulgarian actress and director who also works in Spain, where she created the play Pan, recently performed at the Novi Sad Theater Festival. With simple theatrical tools and a joyful story about bread, she captivated young audiences while reflecting on roots, identity, and home. We spoke with her about the inspiration behind this unique performance, her collaboration with her son, and her views on contemporary children's theater.
How did a piece of dough become the central element and inspiration for your play at the Novi Sad Theater Festival?
It started from something very personal—I'm actually intolerant to the yeast in store-bought bread. There’s something in it, some additive that just doesn’t sit well with me. So, I’ve been baking my own bread for a long time now. And during that process, I noticed how alive the dough feels. It’s like a living being—it breathes, it changes. That got me thinking: the story of bread is really the story of life.
You start with something so basic—flour, water, salt, which come from nature—and then you add your energy while kneading it. That’s why no two loaves are ever the same. It felt to me like bread is a baby, a character, a soul that wants to become something. But to get there, it needs care, time, warmth—just like us.
That’s when the idea of the four elements came in: earth, water, fire, and air. They’re our most fundamental connection to nature. But this idea sat with me for a while, waiting for the right moment to come to life on stage.
Why did you wait?
I think I just wasn’t ready. Sometimes an idea needs to ripen, like the dough itself. I wasn’t at the right stage in life to tell that story. But when my son Alek—who's also an actor and now my co-director—grew up and moved far away, I realized the time had come. That’s why we subtitled the piece Pan is life, and life is Pan. It’s about bread, yes, but really, it’s about life.
You and Alek co-directed the play. He must’ve learned a lot from you growing up—are you now learning from him, too? We also saw your other collaboration, Geometry of the Soul, at the festival.
Absolutely. If you're open, you can learn something new every day, from anyone. Alek grew up surrounded by puppetry and theater, but at first, he didn’t want to follow that path. Eventually, he found his way back to it. And while he learned from me early on, now I’m learning from him.
When you’ve been in this profession for a long time, you develop habits—structures you fall back on. Even when you try to break out of them, they’re still there, like safety nets. But Alek brings fresh energy, a different perspective. He challenges me in the best way. Working with him has reawakened something in my artistic life. We honor our differences as individual artists, and at the same time, we’re able to create together.
You’ve worked both in Bulgaria and Spain. How do you see the differences in how children’s theater is approached in those places?
Of course, our work is shaped by our background and cultural context. In Spain, I’ve noticed a shift in recent years—they’ve become more open and daring in the kinds of stories they tell children. That wasn’t always the case. Some topics were off-limits before. Now, they're starting to explore things like grief, emotional survival, and how children see the world around them—including their parents.
They’re tackling difficult topics—maybe even too difficult, some would say—but they’re doing it in a sensitive, thoughtful way. It’s about helping children understand, not hiding things from them.
Isn’t it a bit harsh to confront children with such heavy topics at a young age?
Perhaps. But as artists, many of us are tired of the same old “safe” themes in children’s theater. We’re trying to find new ground—spaces where children can engage with deeper, more meaningful subjects. I believe we need to stop shouting at children from the stage and start inviting them to think and feel with us. Either you take children’s theater seriously, or you don’t do it at all.
In your view, what drives theater today—artists, or producers and marketing teams?
There’s a bit of everything, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But what’s essential is that we don’t neglect the artist’s creative spirit. That spirit needs to be exercised, trained—just like an athlete’s body. If we don’t nurture it, it weakens. And then we lose something vital—not just in our performances, but in the soul of the theater itself.