From Sofia’s Park Stages to The Bacchae: Mark Modzelewski’s Theater Story

Mark built an English-language theater project in Sofia through free performances, a public-benefit foundation and a studio that teaches acting. Then an unexpected call put him on one of Bulgaria’s largest stages.

Mark Modzelewski was about to teach an acting class when a call from director Javor Gardev changed his plans. The Greek actor cast as Cadmus in The Bacchae was ill. Could Mark take the role at the Bulgarian premiere the next evening?

Mark had spent weeks working with the production as an English speech coach. He knew the people and the play, but he was not part of its cast. He still had a class to teach. When the director called back afterward, the request became definite. “I honestly didn’t have enough time to panic,” Mark told us.

On 30 September 2026, he played Cadmus at the Ancient Theatre in Plovdiv. Mark recalls less than three hours of rehearsal and an in-ear monitor through which he received his lines. The Ivan Vazov National Theatre confirms the substitution: Alexandros Mylonas was ill, and Mark stepped in. Its account says Gardev thanked him at the end and the audience applauded. Almost 2,000 people attended, according to the theater.

That night is a striking chapter in Mark’s story. The path to that stage began years earlier, with free children’s shows in a Sofia park.

The road to Sofia

Mark grew up in Connecticut and studied theater performance at Fordham University in New York. He acted in the United States and began directing while living in Los Angeles. A two-week invitation to coach drama at a summer camp in Arizona led to a teaching position. He stayed for eight years, directing school shows and teaching acting and the technical work behind the scenes; sound, lighting and set design.

He later completed a master’s in theater directing at the University of Essex’s East 15 Acting School in the UK. In London he founded Torchlight Collective, a small company that gave him a way to develop and stage work with other artists. He met his Bulgarian wife during this period. After their first child was born, the family found London difficult to afford and moved to Sofia in 2017.

Before arriving, Mark looked for an English-language theater company where he might work. He could not find one. His idea was to bring people together through performances and training in a language that Bulgarians and newcomers from different countries could share. He began testing it in a public place: Borisova Gradina.

Over two summers, Mark adapted Mother Goose stories and worked with four young Bulgarian actors on free children’s performances in the park. The shows gave families a first encounter with theater in English and gave Mark a way to test his idea with a Sofia audience.

A foundation, a pause, a new model

Creating an organization took longer. Mark wanted a nonprofit with a public-benefit purpose. An early discussion with a lawyer led toward an association, which would have required other founders and did not fit how he wanted to start. After more than a year without reaching registration, he went to the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law. With legal help there, he found a structure that fit the project. THEATER ViSiONS Foundation was registered as a public-benefit nonprofit in August 2019.

The timing was difficult. COVID-19 stopped the momentum of the park shows. Mark was teaching full time and caring for a growing family. THEATER ViSiONS describes a return to active work in 2024. When Mark picked the project up again, he asked how a theater organization could do meaningful work between its larger productions.

Workshops became the answer. His first Elevate English group used theater games and acting exercises to help children practice speaking. A teen acting group followed. The early groups were small and largely found through friends and neighbors. Mark saw enough enthusiasm to keep going, even though he had done little advertising.

A suitable home for the classes proved harder to find. Several venues offered only Friday evenings or weekends. A studio in Studentski Grad had room but was inconvenient for some families to reach. Mark later moved to Mladost 1A, near public transport and his own neighborhood. He describes the growth since the move as steady. A regular, accessible venue made it easier to build a program around the classes.

What THEATER ViSiONS does now

The acting and arts studio offers activities in English for children, teenagers and adults. Children can build speaking confidence through theater games; older students work more directly on acting. Participants include Bulgarians and people from many other countries, using English as a shared working language.

Mark’s teaching has also developed beyond conventional acting classes. The studio describes individual and small-group coaching by request, including public speaking, team building and General American dialect work for performers and business professionals. Mark says requests from clients led him to adapt some of these skills for professionals speaking in international settings. He has worked on tailored English-language confidence training for restaurant staff, too. Broader corporate programs are marked as coming soon on the studio website; availability and format depend on the request.

The studio also offers piano lessons in English, Bulgarian and Russian. Performances still matter to him. THEATER ViSiONS has staged Halloween shows combining theater and live music and has run a drama-in-English summer academy for children in previous years. Workshops keep the organization connected to an audience while a production is being prepared. Mark has also hosted a Creative Gathering, inviting writers, musicians, actors and other artists to meet. He hopes that such encounters lead to collaborations and, one day, to a broader English-language cultural center. For now, that center is an ambition growing out of the studio, not a separate completed venture.

Back to The Bacchae

The stage appearance in Plovdiv grew from a working relationship. The Bacchae was a co-production of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, the Athens Epidaurus Festival and the National Theatre of Northern Greece, with live music by The Tiger Lillies. It was performed in English. Mark and Nathan Cooper are credited as English speech coaches; Mark says he spent about six weeks working with the chorus on a General American dialect.

Earlier, Mark and his design team had applied to direct a small scale production at the National Theatre. They reached the final interview round but were not selected. Months later, the theater invited him to coach the cast of The Bacchae.

When he was asked to replace Mylonas, Mark first had to finish teaching his class. The next day brought a costume, a brief rehearsal and the performance. He remembers concentrating on getting through it until he looked into the audience and realized where he was. A colleague had urged him to enjoy the moment; only then could he begin to do so.

At the curtain call, Mark says fellow performers encouraged him to step forward. The National Theatre’s report confirms Gardev’s public thanks and the applause. Mark later shared a photograph of the Plovdiv company onstage. Mark says he also played Cadmus at the National Palace of Culture, Hall 1, about a week later. A permanent acting role at the National Theatre would require Bulgarian he does not yet speak well enough. He sees himself chiefly as a director and teacher, and hopes the connection may lead to other collaborations.

A lesson in making room

Mark’s advice for someone starting a creative venture in Bulgaria is to find a need that fits their skills, then be ready to work through obstacles. His own organization changed shape several times: free park shows, legal setup, a pause, small workshops and finally a better-connected studio. The studio now gives that idea a dependable home: a place to learn, create and meet potential collaborators.

Current classes, performances and ways to collaborate are listed on the THEATER ViSiONS website. Mark also shares updates on Facebook.

Read more first-hand founder stories from Bulgaria.