Octavian Saiu

Octavian Saiu (born 1977) is a Romanian scholar and theatre critic.

Octavian Saiu received his PhD in Theatre Studies from National University of Theatre and Film (NUTF) in Romania and completed another PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

His Romanian doctoral thesis focused on the concept of theatrical space; the New Zealand one analysed the European reception of the theatre of the absurd.

He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the English Department of the University of Otago, and has received his Habilitation in Theatre and Performing Arts.

Saiu is a teacher in the Postgraduate Programme of NUTF and a PhD supervisor in the Doctoral School of "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu.

He was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study – University of London, and has been visiting professor at various universities in Europe and Asia, as well as the Grotowski Institute.

He chaired sessions in the "Talks and Workshops Series" of Edinburgh International Festival and has been the Chair of the Conferences of Sibiu International Theatre Festival since 2004.

He is the recipient of the Critics' Award (2010) and the Award of the Union of Theatre Artists (UNITER) in 2013.

One of Saiu's constant activities involves public talks and dialogues.

Since 2014 he has been the Chair of the Shakespeare Studies Conference in the context of the biennial Craiova International Shakespeare Festival.

He is a collaborator of Wuzhen Theatre Festival and a Founding Member of the International Theatre Town Alliance in Shengzhou.

Saiu is Adjunct Secretary General of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) and President of the Romanian Section – Theatre Studies of IATC.

He has authored eleven books on theatre, as well as numerous refereed and nonrefereed journal articles.

More recently, he spoke about the role of critical thinking in theatre pedagogy during a plenary address at the Conference of the ITI/UNESCO Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts (2018).

At the Academy of Arts in Berlin, as invited speaker at a conference organized to celebrate Hans-Thies Lehmann's Postdramatic Theatre, he spoke about the dangers of employing cultural concepts as "umbrella terms" for contemporary theatre, with specific reference to the title of Lehmann's seminal essay.

Throughout the years, he has hosted cultural conversations with Tim Robbins, Jin Xing, Neil LaBute, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Ohad Naharin, Jaroslaw Fret, Mao Weitao, Laetitia Casta, Stan Lai, Stanley Wells, Robert Lepage, Robert Wilson, Sasha Waltz, Thomas Ostermeier, Declan Donnellan, Akram Khan, Israel Galvan, Andrei Serban and many others.

In 2019 in Hong Kong, he spoke about the global perception of Chinese culture, beyond the usual clichés of commodification and cultural diplomacy.

One of the recurrent themes in Saiu's talks is performative space, a notion he links with the idea of creative energy.

As affirmed in his book on this topic, Saiu considers Hamlet a character whose madness is not merely feigned, but real.

As a promoter of critical thinking in theatre and performing arts, he organised a keynote panel in the context of the ASSITEJ congress in Cape Town on the values of criticism and value judgment in children's theatre.

On the occasion of the Day of the National Culture, the 15th of January 2020, the President of Romania awarded him the title, Knight of the Order of Cultural Merit.

The distinction was offered "as a sign of appreciation for his important activity dedicated to theatre criticism, and for the professionalism that he has shown in promoting Romanian theatrical creation".

During the pandemic, Saiu was very active as a conference chair and public speaker, promoting the idea that "theatre is not a commodity, but a cultural necessity".

He held events in both English and Romanian: talks, conferences and dialogues with artists and scholars for his Bucharest seasonal series, for Sibiu International Theatre Festival, for International Theatre Institute (ITI-UNESCO), for Tokyo Festival, for IATC Hong Kong etc. After a conversation with the leaders of International Theatre Institute (ITI-UNESCO), ASSITEJ, and UNIMA, he launched the Manifesto for Theatre and Performing Arts.

As the chair of the international conference 'This and That and That: the Multiple Roles of the Theatre Artist – the Double Meaning of Performative Criticism', he was described by Jason Hale as "one [of] the greatest connectors in the world of theatre".

In July 2022, Saiu founded the International Association of Theatre Leaders [IATL], an entity that gathers some of the most prominent figures from the field of performing arts with a proven leadership track record:

„What the world of theatre and the theatre of the world need now is leadership – in other words, the vision, the energy, the talent, the ability, the expertise of those who can help everyone else fulfil their goals and live their dreams.

In the face of so much adversity, it is only through such values that theatre can regain its strength.”