Dragoș Alexandru Mușoiu - sharing what drives his passion!

The ninth theater season at Reactor kicks off with a highly anticipated premiere, the show "The Dream," which brings together the largest artistic team in the history of our collective! Dragoș Alexandru Mușoiu is directing this production, marking his wonderful fourth collaboration with Reactor. Here is what Dragoș enthusiastically shared with us about his work and thoughts on this project:

For some time now, I’ve been questioning the future of my relationship with the theater. You could say I'm going through more of a questioning phase than a research one. I’m trying to figure out if it still fulfills me, or if it can fulfill me in the future, if I could do it the way I truly want to, and if I could find a formula for living together with theater that works for me in the long run. These are questions I started asking myself during the pandemic, when I got a little preview of what being away from theater feels like. And I haven't quite found the answers yet!

That is the broader, exciting context surrounding our work on "The Dream." And although I don't know if it will answer all my questions, the process itself is immensely satisfying in so many ways. I think it looks absolutely challenging, powerful, and spectacular! I adore music and believe it's an incredibly effective vehicle for sharing ideas. Because music carries such a wonderful force, I think we shouldn't shy away from it in the theater—especially when we want to inspire and change mindsets here and now. Why shy away from the musical format when making theater with a big, important message? Just because of the old prejudice that musicals are light and superficial? I think that's just a myth! And if it isn't, then music simply needs to be reclaimed and brought back to serve meaningful art.

This production is a musical, and it aims to address the serious topic of abuse in drama schools. We try to cover a wide range of issues in the teacher-student relationship. Of course, we address flagrant wrongs and obvious abuses, such as sexual harassment, abuse of power, or violence of any kind; but we also strive to speak about more subtle things, like the passing down of toxic values from one generation to the next, or the perpetuation of a destructive way of making theater. Since this is our theme and over half of the cast consists of talented second-year acting students, it was absolutely essential for our rehearsal process to focus heavily on a safe, respectful, and caring workspace. In practice, we have the very people we are talking about right there with us! It felt only natural and right to offer them a fantastic first professional experience where they feel safe, fully integrated, and eager to do it again. I hope we succeeded, and I think this effort was wonderfully beneficial for us more experienced folks, too!

I truly believe that in this regard, theater can indeed change things—even if it's "just" mindsets (which is actually a huge deal!). Sure, theater might not have the massive reach of other media, but this time, that doesn't matter much. Because today, we aren't necessarily speaking to the masses, but to the lovely, dedicated group of people who make theater, teach it, and especially those who learn it. If you ask me, the most wonderful outcome would be for this show to reach current drama students or those who wish to study it in the near future. Once they become aware of these dynamics, they can be the ones who say "no" to certain practices—which is happily starting to happen in isolated cases already! Change in theater education will truly blossom when pressure comes from the students themselves, and, of course, from the universities updating their ethical codes and internal rules. Let's make theater a beautiful space for everyone!