>> 10th November, 2025, at 6.00 p.m., Prešeren Theatre Kranj, Kranj <<

The documentary play Girls is based on the testimonies and stories of women from three different generations: performers in their thirties, their mothers, who are around sixty, and their grandmothers, who are about eighty. Following the play Grannies (2020), Girls are second collaboration between Ljubljana-based director Tjaša Črnigoj and Rijeka-based collective Kolektiv Igralke.

This time, the creators delve into topics of growing up, first sexual experiences, and the sex education received by different generations of women. They explore what “losing virginity” meant to various generations, how much they feared unwanted pregnancies, and what empowered them in discovering their sexuality. Through an intimate excavation of family narratives, the performers and co-authors encounter shame and pain as well as pleasure, opening space for conversations about topics that are often left unspoken.

Girls portray the changing times and sociopolitical systems through personal stories of women. Safe abortion is becoming increasingly inaccessible in Croatia today, and a troubling rise in policies threatening women’s reproductive and sexual rights can be seen elsewhere as well. Where are we headed? Will the coming-of-age experiences of future generations increasingly resemble those of our grandmothers? In creating the play, the team drew inspiration not only from conversations between performers and their mothers and grandmothers but also from workshops and discussions with contemporary seventeen-year-olds growing up in Rijeka.

Girls is thematically linked to the lecture-performance Sex Education II: Fight, which reconstructs the efforts for women’s reproductive rights in Yugoslavia. Together, they form a diptych.

Ticket reservation and information: info@bunker.si