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Bagryana Popov

  • Position: Assistant Professor
  • Department: Department of the Arts
  • Email: [email protected]
Brief Biography

Bagryana Popov is an award-winning theater director, actor, performance maker, teacher and researcher with decades of experience. She has collaborated with acclaimed artists, communities and students across Australia and Europe. Her work is often interdisciplinary, integrating diverse art forms with social and environmental research. She is passionate about the stories theater can tell about our world.

Her groundbreaking environmental, site-specific version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya was performed to critical acclaim at the Adelaide International Festival. She has a long-standing interest in the plays of Anton Chekhov and has adapted and directed all four major works. Her dance-theater adaptation of The Cherry Orchard won multiple Melbourne Green Room Awards. In 2024, her production of The Seagull for the National Theater of North Macedonia in Bitola premiered at the Ohrid International Festival.

Popov has also collaborated with marginalized communities and artists to co-create and perform four major community projects in Melbourne: The Lower Depths, The Tempest, Our Chalk Circle and Dante's Workshop. She has directed numerous projects addressing war and refugee experiences, including the premiere season of Samah Sabawi’s award-winning play THEM and its 2022 national tour across Australia.

With more than two decades of teaching experience, Popov has taught and directed theater in tertiary institutions in Australia and Europe, including Edith Cowan University (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts), the University of Melbourne (Victorian College of the Arts), the University of Tasmania, La Trobe University, Charles Sturt University, Federation University and New Bulgarian University in Sofia.

She has published articles and book chapters on her practice-led research.

Research Interest
  • Environmental theatre
  • Site-specific theatre
  • Chekhov plays
  • Embodiment
  • Theatre representing war and refugee experience
  • Displacement
  • Devised theatre
  • Movement theatre
  • Theatre and ritual traditions

Book Chapter

  • Popov, B. (2019). “The Uncle Vanya Project: Performance, Landscape, Time.” In Art, EcoJustice and Education, edited by Raisa Foster, Jussi Mäkelä and Rebecca Martusewicz. Routledge, New York.

Refereed Journal Articles

  • Popov, B. (2018). “Uncle Vanya in Krivina: Playing Near Two Rivers.” In Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage, edited by Daniel Sack. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Popov, B. (2015). “Music, Silence and the Single Note in the Creation of Meaning in Theatre.” Australasian Drama Studies, Issue 67, October.
  • Popov, B. (2014). “Theatre and Friendship: A Collaboration with the Prahran Mission St. Kilda Drop-In Centre.” Journal of Applied Arts & Health, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 199–207. Intellect.

Documentary Film

  • The Uncle Vanya Project (2020). Directed by Tess Hutson. Co-written and co-produced by Bagryana Popov and Tess Hutson. Cinematography by Alex Serafini. Edited by Lillian Brown.

Selected Theatre Projects (Director: Bagryana Popov)

  • The Seagull, Chekhov — National Theatre of North Macedonia, Bitola, premiere at Ohrid Summer International Festival, 2024
  • The Lower Depths, Maxim Gorky — Federation University Arts Academy, 2024
  • The Seagull, Chekhov — Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Perth, 2024
  • The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov — Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Melbourne, 2023
  • Uncle Vanya in Krivina, Chekhov (translation/adaptation and direction) — site-specific project, Krivina, Bulgaria, 2023
  • The Seagull, Chekhov (translation/adaptation and direction) — site-specific environmental performance, Gunai-Kernai Country, Gippsland Lakes, in partnership with La Mama, 2022
  • Samovila — based on Bulgarian mythological tales, co-devised and directed with WAAPA students, 2022
  • THEM, Samah Sabawi — National tour, 2022; sold-out premiere season 2019; nominated for four Green Room Awards including Best Direction ★★★★★ The Music Review
  • Single Ladies, Michele Lee — Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre, 2021
  • Uncle Vanya at The Cedars, adaptation and direction — Adelaide Festival, 2019 ★★★★★ Limelight
  • Uncle Vanya at Bundanon — site-specific, durational performance, co-produced with La Mama Theatre, 2018
  • Gilgamesh — creative development with Middle Eastern artists, supported by CultureLab, 2018
  • Uncle Vanya in Steiglitz — site-specific, durational project, co-produced with La Mama, 2016
  • Uncle Vanya in Eganstown — site-specific, durational project, co-produced with La Mama, 2016
  • Listening Ground — collaborative research project with Dr. Raisa Foster, Break a Brain Festival, Tampere, Finland, 2015
  • Uncle Vanya in Avoca — site-specific, durational performance, co-production with La Mama, Castlemaine Festival, 2015