About the performance
Little Vampire Goes to School (1999) is the story of a little Vampire who lives with his big family in an old villa. Because he is very lonely, he wants to go to a human school. But there he is in for a surprise, as the human children sleep at night. The living dead therefore organise a school for Little Vampire and other ghosts. The teacher is the Captain of the monsters. He tells the pupils not to write in the notebooks left at school by the day pupils, but Little Vampire disobeys him: he does his maths homework in the notebook of the boy in whose desk he sits. And as the living boy Marcel finds out the next day - without any mistakes at all. Through their shared notebook, Little Vampire and Marcel begin to correspond and eventually strike up a warm friendship. With a masterful blend of humour and tragedy and a clever switch between the creepy and the comical, the story cleverly raises themes such as loneliness, death, faith in God and the value of true friendship.
The director about the show
The world that Sfar creates within the comics is on the one hand a world of the magical and fantastic, and on the other hand a world of the everyday. Despite all the clichéd conventions of the magical that we know, in comics Sfar looks for magic in small things, relationships and friendship, not in supernatural beings and powers. Everything around us can be magical. The people we meet, the events and play that bring us together and open up new worlds, the pain we endure and the happiness we radiate. More than the magical immortality of the protagonist Little Vampire and his ability to fly, there is a certain magic in the friendship that Little Vampire and Marcel forge. Their friendship is the collision of two worlds that are seemingly incompatible. The world of the mortal and the immortal, the world of the mundane and the world of the supernatural, the world of the day and the world of the night... Nevertheless, Little Vampire and Marcel share a similar experience. Both feel lonely within their own worlds. In the Vampire's world, there are no children. For centuries he remains an only child, without peer group and forbidden contact with the outside world. Marcel's socialisation within his own world is hindered by the death of his parents, which has left a strong impression on him. Through comics, the show will confront cynicism and resignation. "Some disasters open magical doors" is the key line uttered by the Monster Captain in the comic, when he convinces Marcel that he is too young to believe in anything. It is not about denying pain and helplessness, but about finding courage in the most difficult moments, which in the bigger picture can sometimes bring experiences that would otherwise remain hidden from us. An important element of the performance will be the live music, which will dictate the atmosphere and navigate between two seemingly incompatible worlds that ultimately become one.
Joann Sfar (1971) is a French comic artist, writer and film director. He is considered one of the most important artists of the new Franco-Belgian comics. He spent the 1990s working with part of the L'Associacion publishing team in shared studios in Paris, but after 2000 he broke into the mainstream by publishing his first classics with the giant Dargaud, such as Rabbi's Cat (a family autobiography from the beginning of the century about the philosophical-religious debates of the titular cat, a megahit in his native land with almost a million copies sold), The Castle (with Lewis Trondheim) and, of course, The Little Vampire, one of France's greatest children's comic classics, with numerous sequels and animated adaptations. As an eloquent philosopher and author of several essayistic, philosophical books, Sfar is a regular guest in the French print and visual media, where he comments on artistic freedom and the role of religious restraint in the state. His main influences are Fred and André Franquin, as well as Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Will Eisner, Hugo Pratt and John Buscema. Between 2009 and 2010, Sfar wrote and directed Gainsbourg: Vie Héroïque, a biopic about the famous French songwriter and singer. The film, in which Sfar, as a comic artist, made extensive use of fantasy creations, animation and puppets, was released in 2010 and received critical acclaim.
Jernej Potočan (1996) started his studies in dramaturgy in 2015, and later in 2019 he began his studies in directing at AGRFT. As a dramaturg he has worked on the plays Under construction, 410 kilometres, Polenta and While spotify is creating a custom playlist for me called moodymix. He also directed the latter two. The play Under construction, in which he participated, was awarded a special jury prize at the 52nd Slovenian Drama Week. He is also a playwright. Three of his plays have been published (The Waste, Every Song is Sung Once, The Sorrows). He received the Grossman Prize for his short script The Zoo, the Second Prize of the One Minute Play Contest for his text We Were Left Without Friends, We Collected Stamps, and the Red Thread Prize for his text The Sorrows. Two of his texts have also been staged (The Sorrows - MGL and Lullaby in a Windowless Room - a collaboration between AG and AGRFT).
Izar Lunaček(1979) is a PhD in philosophy and comics artist. His comics have been published in numerous Slovenian online and print media, such as Delo, Slovenske novice, Mladina and Ludliteratura, and have been collected in ten book editions. Two of them have been published abroad: Paradise in Spain and England, and Animal Noir was published in 2017 as a classic paperback by the American giant IDW. He has recently turned his PhD thesis on the links between comedy and religion into a comic, which will be published next year in an American version by Uncivilized. Lunaček has also illustrated a number of educational books for children from the pens of names such as Miro Cerar and Lučka Kajfež Bogataj, many of which have won the Golden Pear Award for the best educational publication of the year. In his spare time, he runs Stripolis, the only specialised comics shop in the centre of Ljubljana, where he organises events on the subject of the ninth art and, together with Kino Šiška and Stripburger magazine, the central Slovenian comics festival Tinta, which he also co-founded. As part of Stripolis, he also publishes books by Slovenian and visiting authors, many of which he translates himself from French and English, and his translations have been nominated for the best translation of the year award by the French Institute. In 2022, Lunaček was awarded the Order of the Knight of Arts and Letters by France for his efforts in promoting French comics in this country.
