Baja city theatre
The founding of the Theatre Studio of the Béla III High School, the "cradle" of the Baja Youth Theatre, dates back to November 1995. At that time, the high school held its traditional freshman ball celebration every year around this time. We, eleventh grade students, were the entertainment part of the ball. I remember that the year group's show didn't do very well. One Friday afternoon, after a rehearsal of the Bélás Singers (the school's mixed choir of teachers and students), some of us stayed in the school's main lecture hall, singing songs, when our singing teacher, Andrea Pethőné Kővári - who was one of the class teachers in that year - came in and heard us singing the song "A zene" (The Music) from the musical "Somewhere in Europe" with Erika Gyenis. Her eyes lit up and she said, "Yes! That's the song we should end the freshers' ball with!" Of course we protested hand and foot. Of course, we'll stand up in front of everyone and get burned! No way! But after Auntie Andi's idea won the hearts of many, we finally gave in. It was the night of the stag party, and at the end of the show, Erika and I sang The Music with trembling legs and a shaky voice. When the performance ended, the reception was not what one would expect from 700 very critical fellow students (booing, throwing tomatoes or cabbage, etc.), but the audience was interestingly pleased with our performance. It was then that we first thought that it might be worthwhile for us to get involved with this popular genre, musicals, which is loved by many.
That year the group hadn't yet been formed, although some of us were getting out to sing more and more. A few of the school's girls' choir and the Bélás Singers would get together on Friday afternoons and select songs, listen to them, sing them, and in time we would perform at school celebrations and town events. Then, at the end of the school year, we thought that if we were going to devote so much time to this hobby, why not do it in an organised way and for a useful purpose?! We gathered ideas during the summer holidays, and at the beginning of the school year in 1996 we founded the Béla III High School Musical Studio and Dance Company, as it was then known.
We started putting together our first series of performances in January 1997. We decided to donate the proceeds of our productions to charity. The question was: for whom? On a whim, we visited the Children's Department of the Baja Hospital. There we met the head of the department, Dr. Irén Rajkai, who showed us around the children's ward, which is not exactly in the best of conditions. Seeing the desperate situation and hearing her lamenting the financial difficulties, we decided that this was the best place for our income. We succeeded in winning the support of the then mayor of Baja, Péter Széll, and the then headmaster of our school, János Sipos, who became and remained the patrons of our gala event. So the work began: choosing the songs, preparing and learning the choreography (with the help of Yvette Weidinger, one of our school's PE teachers), and organising the gala. After almost four months of preparation, in April 1997 the curtain was raised on our first charity gala evening, " Bélások a gyermekek" (Children's Charity Gala), which we named after our school. The reception of the performance exceeded all our expectations, and we had a huge success with our show, which lasted nearly three hours and consisted of various musical extracts, so that in the end we performed the production four times, originally planned for three performances. The income in the first year was over three hundred thousand forints. The evenings we spent together were memorable, but at the time we had no idea that this series of performances would become a tradition and that the occasional group would become a theatre company in the city.
We are creating a tradition
While I continued my studies in architecture in Budapest the following academic year, the Musical Studio members who made up the gala series had the desire to continue the performance. So we started to think about another production - I helped them from afar by phone and came to rehearsals whenever I could. And so the work continued, and together we prepared for another series of charity performances in the spring - because we all agreed that the proceeds would again be donated to the children's department. We changed the name of the group to the Béla III High School Musical and Dance Studio and the new production was called the Belas Show, and it was another great success.
At the end of the school year in Pest, I felt that architecture was not my future - that's when I came back to Baja, and at the offer of János Sipos, the director of Béla III High School and an enthusiastic supporter of our team, I officially became the permanent director of the studio. From then on, the work of the company became permanent and continuous, and for the next six years, every spring we staged a charity performance for the benefit of the Children's Department of the Baja Hospital, still under the title of the Bélás Show, which has become a concept in the town over time. The joint work has borne fruit: for us it has meant many experiences, unforgettable performances, the recognition of the ever-growing audience in Baja and the Baja region, and for the children's ward, a total of nearly two and a half million forints in donations over the seven years.
Company building
In the meantime, in addition to our traditional spring benefit performances, we have been invited to perform in more and more places. Slowly, the company became self-sufficient: we made appearances, wrote tenders and won sponsors for our cause. In the meantime we thought that maybe we should not only do musical performances, but also try our hand at prose theatre. After several small attempts, our school's Student Theatre was officially founded in September 1998. Our first attempt was a commemorative performance on 23 October - followed by several other commemorative performances, because it is only fitting that a drama group should produce them if it is already running in the school. This was followed at Christmas 1998 by a very merry nativity play, which was presented to all classes.
The first really big production of the Student Theatre was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince in December 1999. The play was a huge success - a good choice, because Saint-Exupéry's work is for everyone, enjoyed by children and adults alike, and it also sent us a message that prose theatre is worthwhile.
In the autumn of 2001, the Musical and Dance Studio and the Student Stage merged, and from then on we took the name of the Theatre Studio of Béla III High School. In the following years, we presented a wide variety of works in the Baja City Theatre - sometimes more than once a year.
From 2003 to 2007, we were part of the Danubia Basic Art Education Institution. This was an important moment in our history, because in addition to creating theatre productions - in order to be able to work more and more effectively and with higher quality - the role of training students, teaching them singing, dancing and acting, was necessarily enhanced. We have therefore set up regular classes at the Theatre Studio: we have started a continuous training programme for singing, dancing and drama for our students.
In 2005, I was offered the opportunity to join the Rock and Musical Theatre Company in Budapest, and it was with a heavy heart that I accepted the offer. However, I didn't want our theatre activities in Baja to cease when I left, so after much consideration I asked Orsolya B. Szabó to take over the management of the company. Orsi and I have known each other for a very long time, we worked together as students, we created several performances - either Orsi's own play Try or later on with Csepűrágó Színpad and later with the a'la cARTe Theatrum Association, which was formed from it. I knew that I could trust Orsi with the theatre. In dance, the more skilful students who had already stood out from the rest and could choreograph and teach were the ones who helped me to continue. The singers were started by Péter Kirsch, whom I had also known for some time and who had founded the Starlight Studio Arts Community in Baja at the same time.
So the theatre work in Baja could continue, and while I was living in Pest, several successful productions were created under the direction of the Orsi family. However, the farewell was not final - in the autumn of 2006, I continued my work with the Theatre Studio in addition to my activities in Pest.
The Baja Youth Theatre is created
Once again, my life took an interesting turn. It started with the decision to organise a Musical Camp in Baja with friends and theatre colleagues from Pest. I wanted the enthusiastic students here to learn the craft of musical theatre from professionals, and this first Musical Camp in Baja became another milestone in the history of our team. It was at this camp that Barbi Láng, with whom I also worked in Pest and who has been a good friend and creative partner ever since, and I first thought that we could produce a musical piece together here in Baja. Barbi was an excellent dancer and assistant choreographer in the team in Pest, she also taught dance to the young people at the camp, and I felt that we could work together very well. From this idea, our performance Imaginary Report from an American Pop Festival was born in the spring of 2007. Performed with a live orchestra, the piece was a huge success - which also signalled to us that it was a path worth pursuing.
It should be noted that even then the team was made up entirely of students from Béla III High School. However, the success of the Theatre Studio naturally attracted the attention of students from other Baja schools interested in theatre. More and more of them asked how they could join our studio. So we finally opened the doors of the studio, and from then on not only students from Baja could apply to join the Theatre Studio, but we also expanded our membership to include young people from other secondary schools in Baja, and in 2008, through our production of Somewhere in Europe, primary school students aged 7-12 joined the team. Adult amateur actors from Baja have also been involved in our productions for a long time, and several collaborations have been established over the years with other period theatre groups in Baja (e.g. the aforementioned Csepűrágó Színpad and a'la cARTe Theatrum Association). Nor can we neglect the activities of young people who, after leaving our high school, have returned and continued to participate regularly in our productions. And so we suddenly realised that we were no longer just a school drama group. It was much more than that: it was a city troupe! Quite rightly, we have received a good number of comments asking why we call our productions the Béla III High School Theatre Studio, if this is not entirely true. After reflecting on this, we decided that the next big turning point in the life of the team had arrived. The idea was born that from the 2008/2009 season onwards, we would operate under a new name that would express the city's solidarity, our artistic work and that it would all be realised here in Baja. This is how the Baja Youth Theatre was founded on 8 June 2008 - a name we first announced at the end of our performance of Somewhere in Europe.
So from autumn 2008, we have been producing further productions under this new name. The theatrical education, training and teaching of students continues to take place in the Theatre Studio of the Béla III High School, and the most talented students from this studio are also involved in the Theatre's performances. Every September, we welcome students aged 7-18 who love singing, dancing and acting to our drama studio - and since 2015, we have also had an adult drama group for young people over 18. There's no upper age limit, because if you act, you stay young for life!
We have become a renowned theatre company
In 2013, we took another step: we registered the company with the Hungarian Performing Arts Office and have since become an official theatre organisation.
Over the years, our activities have become increasingly important in the artistic life of Baja. We cannot complain about the professional appreciation of our company. In addition to a large and regular audience, since 2007 our productions have been included in Baja's traditional spring and autumn theatre season series for adults and children. The organisers of the city's cultural life (formerly the József Attila Cultural Centre and Youth House, nowadays the programme organisers of Baja Marketing Ltd.) recognise our work and give us the opportunity to present our productions to theatre-loving audiences among professional theatre performances and companies. Our company members are counted on at all the major events in the city, we have also performed several times for charity (for disadvantaged families, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, children in difficulty) and between 2012 and 2018 we produced summer open-air theatre productions together with the Budapest Operetta Theatre on the stage of the Szentháromság Square in Baja, as part of the Wonderful Baja series.
