Tara Manić

Tara Manić is a theater director and an assistant professor at the Department of Theater Directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She completed her undergraduate studies as the valedictorian and recipient of the “Dr. Hugo Klajn” Award, with the production of Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler. She finished her master’s studies with the performance Till Eulenspiegel – On Bullshit in the Theatre at Újvidéki Színház. In 2024, she earned her doctorate from the same faculty by directing The Library of All Senses, a documentary performance about the perception of theater by blind and partially sighted people.

Since 2017, she has been working at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts – first as a professional associate, then as a teaching assistant, and today as an assistant professor in the subject of Theater Directing. For her work, she was awarded the “Silver Medal” of the University of Arts. She has furthered her professional development through numerous international workshops and by assisting Jernej Lorenci and Aleksandar Popovski. She has participated in residencies at the prestigious La Colline theatre in Paris (2014) and at the jubilee 70th Avignon Festival (2016). She is the recipient of the “Neda Depolo” First Prize for the best radiophonic work from Radio Belgrade (2017).

Her performances have been staged and awarded at festivals in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Serbia. In 2024, at Heartefact, she directed the performance How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, which has since been a guest at numerous festivals (the 6th EastWest Festival in Sarajevo, the 16th “Zaplet“ in Banja Luka, the Kosovo/Albania Theater Showcase in Tirana, the 8th Jurislav Korenić Days in Sarajevo, the Tirana Contemporary Theater Festival Mediums, Off Europa in Leipzig, Germany, the 52nd INFANT in Novi Sad, the 25th Ulysses Festival on Brijuni, the 35th Noorderzon festival in Groningen, the Netherlands), winning more than ten awards for best direction and best performance. Tara’s latest production was created at Theater Osnabrück in Germany, based on the remix of the novel Izlaženje (Going Out) by Barbi Marković. She lives and works in Belgrade.