Created as part of the Drama Reads programme, we named the new platform, due to the extraordinary epidemiological situation that characterised the 2020/21 season, Drama Library for Vulnerable Groups. It was triggered in response to the renewed suspension of public life, with the primary aim of making living in an emergency more pleasant and meaningful for the residents of nursing homes and members of vulnerable groups. The idea of the platform, offering accomplished interpretation of (mainly) Slovenian literary texts, arose not only from spontaneous reading performances, which were presented to the audience during the first suspension of public life by the members of our ensemble, but also from the fact that the SNT Drama Ljubljana acquired a new recording studio. The actors will now be making use of professional equipment and sound masters to record high quality, demanding texts and explore modern speech approaches to different genres of literature in the best working conditions. This gave us the opportunity to establish a new connection with those who are denied or hindered access to direct contact with the arts. The platform is aimed at the widest audience, so we decided to make access as easy as possible. Due to its appeal, the idea has received popular acclaim and sparked a lot of interest, so we will continue producing readings for the Drama Library also in the 2021/22 season.
The texts for the Drama Library are selected and rehearsed with the actors by our in-house language consultant Tatjana Stanič. As a first and introductory set, she has chosen poetry by four representatives of Slovenian early modernism, Josip Murn –Aleksandrov, Dragotin Kette, Ivan Cankar and Oton Župančič. Their first collections of poetry, with a short introductory essay, were presented in their entirety or up to the length of ninety minutes recordings interpreted by twelve members of the SNT Drama ensemble. Sound masters and editors were Jurij Alič and Srečko Bajda. The recording was organised by theatre pedagogue Špela Šinigoj.
Between November 2020 and February 2021, we included on the SNT Drama Ljubljana website, in the Library for the Vulnerable Groups, four recordings of Poems and Romances by Murn, Poems by Kette, Erotica by Cankar, and The Goblet of Inebriation by Župančič.
To conclude the first series of literary readings in the Drama Library, we organised two poetry evenings in the Drama back garden. A selection of recorded poems was presented live by the actors in front of a large audience on 12 June 2021 (The Goblet of Inebriation, Erotica) and on 21 June 2021 (Poems and Romances, Poems).
In the 2021/22 season we will present a selection of Slovenian short fiction, starting with the author Josip Jurčič.

Tatjana Stanič