Mathematicians Win a Stage Oscar

With their comedy Play Dundo, the students of Zagreb’s 5th Grammar School won first place at the World Festival of Creativity in Sanremo, appropriately marking the 500th anniversary of the birth of the famous comedy author Marin Držić.

The students of Zagreb’s 5th Grammar School are the recipients of a stage Oscar which they won in the face of tough competition from high-schools and universities from all over the world at the recently finished World Festival of Creativity in Sanremo. They won first place with their comedy Play Dundo, which is based on the very demanding piece, Dundo Maroje, by one of the greatest European comedy authors, Marin Držić of Dubrovnik, whose 500th anniversary of his birth is being marked this year all over Croatia. The Negromanti theater troupe, which consists of students from the mathematical school, performed their play in flawless Italian, English, French and Croatian with a Dubrovnik dialect on the town square in Siena, the city where Držić once studied. Thus, Zagreb’s students joined the marking of this jubilee which has resulted in 2008 being proclaimed the year of Marin Držić.

By winning first place at this year’s festival, Zagreb’s students have received the stage Oscar for the second time, becoming the record holders of sorts in this contest. Throughout the ten years of its existence, only the students from Zagreb have managed to win first place twice. But, apart from the theater award, Zagreb’s students also won first place for the best stand, which was decorated in a renaissance style. Dressed in period costumes, the students exhibited films, photographs and other materials, as well as food from the times of the renaissance and Marin Držić, magnificently representing both Zagreb and Dubrovnik.