Grivita53 Eggs Festival

In  2016, Chris Simion-Mercurian, one of the most appreciated Romanian theatre directors, sold her grandmother’s home to pursue the dream of building the first Romanian private theatre from the ground up, after 72 years since in 1946, the engineer Liviu Ciulei has built for his son, the director Liviu Ciulei, the Nottara Theater. Since then, no such initiative has been replicated in Romania. Shortly after starting the project, on October 1^st, 2017, Chris Simion-Mercurian was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her priorities dramatically changed and for one year the project was on stand-by, while she was on treatment. Chris successfully came back in February 2019 and announced she will continue the campaign to raise funds for the theatre by initiating the project Grivita53 Eggs Festival. 19 giant eggs, 19 iconic personalities, 19 unique concepts.

Chris Simion-Mercurian started off the project by inviting iconic figures in theatre, sport, painting, journalism, music, and film, top performers in their activity fields and important landmarks for the Romanian society to join in and support the birth of the new initiative: Maia Morgenstern, Oana Pellea, Marius Manole, Dan Perjovschi, Iuliana Vilsan, Mirela Traistaru, Horatiu Malaiele, Valeria von Groningen, Chris simion – Mercurian, Alex Gavan, Alexandru Tomescu, Ivan Patzaichin, Mihai Dobrovolschi, Alexandra Nechita, Francisc Chiuariu, Mihai Popescu, Fikl, Aratcia Etcheveria, Alexandru Tomescu, with the help of their dedicated teams. Each of the artists has created a 2m high, 1.65 m across and 50kg in weight painted egg. Together with plastic artists in their teams, each of them created a unique piece of art, that Chris set out to sell at 5,000 euro per piece.

Together with the money raised in 2017 when Chris started by selling small pieces of the theatre (bricks, windows, doors, chairs) and the 95,000 euro coming from the sale of all 19 eggs in Grivita53 Eggs Festival, the project has now 246,110 euro ready to be invested in the start of its first phase. The proud owners of the 19 eggs are: Globalworth (4 pieces), Camelia Sucu & Class In (2 pieces), Veronica Savanciuc, CBRE, Immofinanz, CA IMMO, One, Iqos, Valeria & Steven von Groningen, Dinu Urse & Asociatii (2 pieces), Teilor, Afi Palace Cotroceni, Dana Demian, Hotel International Sinaia.

Grivita53, the first theatre built together, enjoys the sympathy of everyone wanting to leave something essential behind. We take our time in building this theatre and stand by our values, as we are not building just a facility, but a spirit and a community. Grivita53 is the legacy that our generation will leave to the following ones.