Amateur theatre group

The beginnings of Amateur Theatre Group in Volkovce date as back as 1927. As there are no written documents we know of these from word of mouth and from local chronicles, where the information is sketchy. We know that the early activity of the Amateur theatre group began with the play by Ferko Urbánek called „ Kamenný chodníček“ (A little stone lane). This play also restarted the theatre activity in 2000.

During the First and Second World War the Amateur theatre group played an important part in the village. These were times with no television and radio was rarely listened to. The theatre was the main form of entertainment in the village. It was also a good lesson for school children, college youth and adults in public performances.

At first the plays were performed primarily by teachers, who taught in the local school, but as time went by, local amateurs took part in performing as well as directing and producing. We would like to mention some:

• Teachers: Jozef Bevilaqua, Vojtech Brandt, Imrich Holečka, Augustín Kasana, Štefánia Hasprová, Jozef Šúň, Jozef Kozolka, Jozef Sopko, Jana Frajková, Ľubica Lackovičová, Anna Hasprová.

• Other directors and organisers: Alojz Lehotský, Jozef Malý, František Frajka, Emil Mlynka, Jozef Haspra, Cyril Mlynka, Klement Tesársky, Mária Segíňová, Blažena Kozolková, Iveta Juríková and others.

The theatre tradition in our village was very strong, so much so, that even after periods of inactivity, it kept reappearing. The plays were always well-received and due to the overwhelming interest the plays had to be repeated multiple times.

2000 was a ground breaking year. Not only because it was the Millennium, but also because the Amateur theatre group started a new era. After 16 years of inactivity, volunteers started to rehearse a new play. This play was to commemorate 725 years of first written mention of Volkovce village in July 2000.

As already mentioned, the play selected for this was by Ferko Urbánek called „ Kamenný chodníček“ (A little stone lane). So this had a huge symbolic value for everyone.

Mgr. Anna Hasprová directed this play. The roles were cast amongst the more experienced volunteer actors (Cyril Mlynka, Ľudovít Mlynka, Mária Segíňová, Blažena Kozolková), but also the younger generation of „trainee“ actors, who unfortunately had not had the opportunity to witness their older counterpart‘ successes due to the long break. The younger generation were (Katarína Segíňová, Miroslava Komáreková, Darina Kozolková, Peter Haspra, Ondrej Kozolka, Jozef Mozeš).

Now that the Amateur theatre group started its activity again, children too were included in the play. They were longing to show off their talent on stage (even if it is a small local stage). This inclusion meant that as time went by, children slowly became the majority cast. In recent years, thanks to Mária Segíňová, who dedicates a lot of her time and energy to the children, they were able to perform two plays with 100% children cast.

Plays performed by the Amateur Theatre Group after 2000