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With a total attendance of 40 thousand people, the eighth edition of the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires came to an end, after a two-week run featuring a rich and varied program with the best in international contemporary theater, dance and music as well as with the newest and best-rated in the Argentine performing arts scene. In total, the festival offered 48 performances (14 international and 34 national) at 31 venues, with rave reviews from the specialized press and an outstanding response from the public – tickets sold out for all performances requiring a paid admission ticket, and the audiences demonstrated their support through participation and critical enthusiasm.

Ticket sale continues today, for those who wish to attend Warum Warum (Why, Why), directed by Peter Brook and based on texts by Artaud, Meyerhold and Shakespeare, among other authors. The play made its debut yesterday, Friday, and will be staged again tonight at 8 p.m. at Sala Casacuberta of Teatro San Martín. A maximum of two tickets will be sold per person from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Teatro San Martín (Av. Corrientes 1530), and seats will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

The festival ends with a line-up of top quality shows – a constant throughout this two-week run, featuring the very best in theater from around the world. Today, Saturday, Javier Margulis’s La funeraria will be performed by Grupo de Teatro Independiente La Escalera at 5.30 p.m. at Teatro Sarmiento (Av. Sarmiento 2715, next to the Buenos Aires Zoo). And within the well-received new section of the Festival, “Proyectoclásico”, Emilio García Wehbi’s Hécuba o el gineceo canino (photo) – an adaptation from Eurípides’ Hecuba – will be staged at 9 p.m. at the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas (Av. Corrientes 2038).

The section “ProyectoClásico”, one of the new attractions of the 2011 edition of the Festival will conclude with the performances of Alfredo Ramos’s Curepí (photo), based on Oscar Wilde’s Salome (today, Friday, 9 p.m.); Beatriz Catani and Quico García’s Si es amor de verdad, me dirás cuánto entonces, adapted from William Shakespeare’s Antonio and Cleopatra and including the text Bufido, by Nicolás Prividera (today, 9.30 p.m.); and Emilio García Wehbi’s Hécuba o el gineceo canino, based on Euripides’ Hecuba (tomorrow, Saturday, 9 p.m.). All performances will be staged at the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas.

Highlights of today’s schedule of events include: two free talks that will take place at the Sala Cunil Cabanellas of Teatro San Martín (Av. Corrientes 1530). At 3 p.m., director Mariana Percovich and set designer Fernando Scorsela, from Uruguayan company Complot, will talk about “El espacio en Chaika: transformar al teatro en un espacio no convencional” (The Space in Chaika: Transforming Theater into a Non-Conventional Space), with Carolina Balbi serving as moderator. Speaking of Chaika, tonight will be the last performance at the Teatro Margarita Xirgu: remaining tickets are on sale at this website or can be purchased in person at Teatro San Martín, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

This afternoon at 6, the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas (Av. Corrientes 2038) will host two ceremonies for the traditional contests that take place before the Festival. The Alfredo de la Guardia National Theater Essay Competition will award prizes to three works, the details are as follows: Teatro Abierto 1981: Teatralogía e Historia, by Irene Villagra (first prize); La curvatura del espacio dramático. Aproximaciones a una topología teatral, by Eduardo del Estal (second prize); and Apuntes para una genealogía del espacio escénico en el teatro argentino. De la emancipación al drama de la segunda modernidad, by Manuel Maccarini (third prize).

Gerardo Hochman’s Leonardo Trabajo práctico No.1, performed by the company from the Universidad Nacional de San Martín, “La Arena”, will be premiered at Ciudad Cultural Kónex (Sarmiento 3131), today (Thursday) at 7 p.m. The play is part of the “Concurso Proyectos Teatrales” section, a project carried out by the Festival and the Instituto Nacional de Teatro that stages never-before-staged open-theme plays.

A series of urban interventions begins today, Wednesday – César Enriquezand Dora García’s Las cajas voyeuristas performed by Mexican company La Biznaga Teatro. Performances are scheduled for today, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 1.30 p.m. at Plaza de la República, by the Obelisk, at the intersection of Corrientes and 9 de Julio avenues. This being a free singular and attractive show, it is recommended that you take a moment out of your busy schedule to enjoy this performance downtown at lunchtime.

For those who wish to see Peter Brook’s Warum Warum (Why, Why), remaining tickets keep on sale today, Friday, at 11 a.m. The play – based on texts by Artaud, Meyerhold and Shakespeare, among other authors – will be staged at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 7 and Saturday, October 8 at the Sala Casacuberta of Teatro San Martín. A maximum of two tickets will be sold per person from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Teatro San Martín (Av. Corrientes 1530), and seats will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

Today, Tuesday, until Thursday, at 8 p.m., Chaika, Mariana Percovich’s free version of Chéjov’s La gaviota, will be performed by the Uruguayan company Complot at Teatro Margarita Xirgu (Chacabuco 875). Remaining tickets for the three evenings are on sale at this website or can be purchased in person at Teatro San Martín (Av. Corrientes 1530), from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.