Who We Are - Mikro Theater

Mikro Theater is a Jerusalem fringe theater, operating as a professional, independent company since 1994 and recognized by the Ministry of Culture since 2004. The theater was founded by Irina Gorlik, who continues to direct here to this day, and operates under the artistic direction of Yefim Rinenberg and the management of Nir Segev. From its earliest days, Mikro has worked from the belief that a theater isn't just a venue for performances, but a creation house — a place where people work, live, and make theater as a tool for processing reality.

History

Three Decades of Theater

1994

The Founding. Our story begins in Jerusalem in the mid-1990s: one room, a group of teenagers. Irina Gorlik, a theater artist who immigrated from Saratov, opens a Russian-language acting course in the Gilo neighborhood for young people among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. One shared language, and a group that found a home in theater. One of them is Yefim Rinenberg. That's how we were born — small, and close.

1999

From a Room to a Theater. The course didn't stay a course. A weekly meeting became daily work, and acting classes became work on full productions. We grew, and the theater grew with us: five shows in our first five years, the last of which — "A Midwinter Night's Dream" — was the moment we became a theater, not just a group. This is where the belief that has stayed with us ever since took shape: that size isn't an advantage, and that smallness — few people, deep familiarity, long commitment — is a source of strength, not something given up. The Jerusalem Municipality gave us a public bomb shelter on Yosi Ben-Yoezer Street; the shelter became a rehearsal room, and later — a home.

2004

Recognition and a Move. After a decade of guerrilla work, the Ministry of Culture recognizes us as a professional theater. It's also time to part with our beloved shelter: the Khan Theatre opens its gates to us, and we move to work out of the small Khan.

Our Method

The Ensemble as Laboratory

In every piece of work, we return to Mikro's founding question: what is Jewish theater in Jerusalem, here, now? Our work rests on the tradition of studio theater, which sees the actor as a creative partner, and operates through an ongoing working process that includes physical and vocal work, text analysis, improvisation, and dramaturgical thinking.

From this outlook, we've developed over the years an artistic voice engaged with existential and historical questions, drawing its material from the best of literature — Meir Shalev, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig, Nathan Alterman, and many others.

Place

Jerusalem as Material

From Songs of the Plagues of Egypt, at the legendary YMCA pool

We see Jerusalem as a living creative space, not just a backdrop. We've built expertise in site-specific work that carries on a dialogue with the city's architecture and history — in ancient burial caves, in plazas, in hotels and bars.

"Jerusalem, in all its complexity, is the right place to attempt this."

Activity

What We Do

Repertoire

The shows we create and stage in our permanent home at the Jerusalem Theater — premieres and adaptations from Hebrew and world literature, kept alive for years.

See all shows ←

Stage Front

An artistic-rehabilitative program for creators and performers returning from reserve duty — processing the experience through the language of the stage.

Project page ←

Basement

A studio for stagecraft for marginalized populations — opening the stage to those who usually stay outside it.

Project page ←

Microdosing

A traveling series of short theater evenings in unconventional spaces around the city — a stage for young creators and a testing ground for site-specific work.

Project page ←

Sources

Library

The raw material our work is built from — playwrights, novelists, and poets.

Meir ShalevIsaac Bashevis SingerNathan AltermanStefan ZweigThomas MannHanoch LevinRomain GaryMolièreFredrik BackmanRubén González GallegoEtgar KeretTennessee WilliamsJoseph BrodskyStanisław WyspiańskiZe'ev JabotinskyTheodor HerzlPierre de MarivauxRoy Melich Reshef

More than three decades after we were founded, we at Mikro continue making theater in this city from that same original belief: that the art of the stage is a way to observe reality and process it; that every show is a renewed attempt to touch something real; and that Jerusalem, in all its complexity, is the right place to attempt this.