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| National Theatre of Pécs director Tamás Balikó, whose provocative statements disputing the fairness of a recent tender to fill the post of director of the Hungarian National Theatre have drawn protests from the Hungarian Theatre Association. |
Balikó complained that several pages of the applications of two of the candidates for the position had been left out when the materials were distributed among the members of the evaluation committee. He argued that a new tender should have been called, even though the members of the committee reconvened after the omission was discovered.
Balikó alleged in an interview published in local paper Dunátúli Napló that the tender had already been decided. In another interview published on the internet, he took a more provocative tone: "As a 50-year-old Lutheran, a tax-paying citizen and a heterosexual male theatre director with three diplomas, I find this fraud to be a crime."
Six applications were submitted for the post of Hungarian National Theatre director. Four met the criteria outlined in the tender, among them applications by Balikó, the director and chairman of the Association of Alternative Theatres Lázsló Hudi, the theatre historian and playwright Zoltán Imre and the director and actor Róbert Alföldi.
Minister of Education and Culture István Hiller announced on December 20 that Alföldi, who is one of Hungary's most popular actors and directors, would take the post from July 1.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
