Every space hides its drama – it can sometimes be clearly seen, sometimes it can be anticipated, and sometimes it just crouches and waits in the darkness to bring the most talented among us to the light of day and show it to the world.

Exactly two decades ago, theatre director and playwright Petar Pejakovic decided to set up a drama studio in Kotor. Twenty years later, the drama studio continues to live in several Montenegrin cities, and since 2015 it officially operates under the name Prazan prostor (eng. Empty Space). Till today, more than 2,800 young people have passed through the studio. And everyone learned the most important thing: acting is a means, not a goal in itself.

In fact, the most important goal of this drama studio is to work together on a complex process of developing children and young people with the proper usage of drama techniques. In Empty Space, young people are encouraged to think creatively and critically about the world in which they live, the topics they address through acting are always concerned with their reality, and through the stage improvisations they often try to resolve many real-life situations.

The goal of everyone involved in Empty Space is also to promote theatre for children and young people, to influence the development of new generations of theatre audiences and to improve the quality of cultural life in our broadest environment.

Funding has never been easy to find, but a team of five freelance enthusiasts of different professional backgrounds (besides Petar Pejakovic, actor Slavisa Grubisa, psychologist Marija Backovic, director Mirko Radonjic and producer Milivoje Lakic) apart from the school, manages to keep the theatre production alive, brave in the approach to the topics it handles, and original in presenting innovative stage solutions. Their performances of Rooms, Lagari – a lesson on Surrogate and Love and Violence easily found their way to the hearts of the audience, especially among young people.

The play Love and Violence, which premiered in 2016, has had more than 30 performances across Montenegro till today, an estimated 3,000 young people visited the play. it is intended for them and speaks about violence in peer relationships as well as the position of girls in our society today. This successful theatre project is the result of an Empty Space partnership with the United Nations Office in Montenegro, the Ministry of Education and with experts in the field of education and combating violence against women. The play was made in an alternative form of forum theatre, which in a specific and attractive way engages the audience and encourages them to participate actively in the joint stage play.

Three new productions are under preparation, one for children, one for young people and one for adults. The regional theatre adventure continues! This is a multi-year regional project with colleagues from Slovenia (Open drawers, Institute for Contemporary Interdisciplinary Processes, Kranj), Croatia (Puppet Organization We Need For Sure, Loft, Zagreb), Serbia (Festival of Ecological Theater – FEP, Backa Palanka) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Nevid Theater, Banja Luka), whose main goal is to promote and raise the quality of theatre for children and young people in our country and in the region, with a common motto: Follow what we do because it starts from a young age!

Perhaps Peter will modestly tell you that there was nothing spectacular new at the beginning of the venture he embarked on in Kotor and has existed for two decades, as there is nothing new in this magnificent art of more than two thousand years: theatre has always been and it will be made up of laughter, tears and dreams – a unique and open stage space filled with emotions.

So is this one. Empty space – but the soul is filled.