The Rhodopi International Theater Collective

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The Rhodopi International Theater Collective (or The RITC) is the former name of the Leon Katz Rhodopi International Theatre Laboratory (or RITL), an annual summer gathering of theatre practitioners and scholars, which allows professional participants to work with and train students and each other in distinct approaches from around the world. The name was changed in preparation for the 2009 session. The program operated under the previous name during the summers of 2005 to 2008.

Held in Smolyan, Bulgaria, in the center of the Rhodopi Mountains (or Rhodope Mountains), The Laboratory is hosted primarily by the Rhodopi Dramatichen Theatre (or Rodopa Drama Theater) and organized by Fourthworld Theatre Projects. The program was started with the partnership of the Krastyo Sarafov National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia, The HyperMedia Studio at the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television, and the University of Zagreb's Academy of Dramatic Art. Serving as a meeting ground for international collaboration, individual professionals and students from theatre companies and conservatories in several countries attend The Laboratory, to train as well as to develop work with international collaborators. Projects developed at the RITL have gone on to performances at a number of theaters, including the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and the McCarter Theater in the United States.

The Rhodopi Mountains are widely considered to be the mythological birthplace of Orpheus and Eurydice, as well as the original terrain of the cult of Dionysus, thus the mythological birthplace of Western theater and performance.

Contributors have included Mara Isaacs of the McCarter Theater, actor/writer Yuhuda Hyman, choreographer and dervish Ozden Akturk, Dostena Anguelova-Lavergne of the International Delphic Council, Dr. Sue-Ellen Case, the International Theatre Institute's Martha Coigney, Russian actor Valeri Garkalin (IMDb profile, “Valeri Garkalin”), director/writer Jared J. Stein, Bulgarian director Peter Karapetkov, British director Jonathan Chadwick, Aleksandr Morfov of the Komissarzhevskaya Drama Theatre and Ivan Vazov National Theatre, Philip Arnoult of the Center for International Theatre Development, Kalamandalam Piyal Bhattarcharya, American director Risa Brainin, Yasen Peyankov of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, puppet artists Tom Lee and Matthew Acheson, master teacher of Cham Dance Lobsang Lama, master teacher of Wayang Kulit and Topeng Masked Dance Nyoman Sedana, Canadian director Michael Devine, Jeff Burke of UCLA's Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance, composer Yukio Tsuji, Jed Allen Harris of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and mime and performance anthropologist Alexandar Iliev. Leon Katz, a professor and mentor of Fourthworld's founder Jared J. Stein, served on the initiative's board of advisers and was a dramaturg and lecturer during the inaugural session in 2005.