Felix Alexa refuses to step back at Bucharest National Theatre amid harassment claims

Hiring and accusations

The Bucharest National Theatre (TNB) hired director Felix Alexa, and the decision has provoked indignation in the Romanian theatre community. Theatre manager Ada Hausvater said on 30 October that the hiring was her decision, discussed and approved by the theatre's artistic council and administrative council. Several women have accused Alexa of harassment and abuse, and the accusations first surfaced in a 2022 RISE Project investigation in which women spoke anonymously about harassment, psychological abuse and professional blackmail.

Lawsuits and denials

Alexa rejects the accusations and says he will prove in court that the statements about him are false. According to a Facebook post by his lawyer, Valentina Topor Varban, he has launched a first lawsuit seeking 100,000 euros in damages from Iulia Grigoriu. He confirmed to the outlet Cultura la dubă that he has also sued actor Alex Călin, and he told the same outlet that others would follow.

“I will not take a single step back, I have no reason to.”

Grigoriu's account

Iulia Grigoriu says she was 19 in autumn 2013 and a first-year student in Alexa's class. She told her story anonymously to RISE Project in 2022, and on 29 October 2026 she decided to speak publicly under her own name. She says that at Alexa's request another person posted on Facebook an email from their private correspondence without her consent, which she considers a breach of her privacy and of the secrecy of correspondence. Through her lawyer she intends to give the full exchange to the competent institutions, and she says she will cooperate with any review.

“It took me 13 years to speak under my own name. I hope today's female students will not need that long.”

Pressure from the theatre community

Andrei Șerban, honorary director of TNB, publicly asked Alexa to suspend his collaboration with the institution until the accusations are proven unfounded. More than 1,000 artists and spectators have signed a petition asking the Ministry of Culture to intervene, and the row has already led to the resignation of one actor. Alexa says the accusations date from four years ago and points out that he returned to TNB in 2023 and 2024 to stage two productions without incident. He also suggested the affair is a pretext in a broader fight over the theatre's direction, and he invoked John Proctor, the character from Arthur Miller's The Crucible. He is continuing rehearsals for Molière's Tartuffe, scheduled to premiere at the end of the year.

Institutional response

UNITER, the Romanian theatre union, condemned abuse, harassment, intimidation, discrimination and blackmail in the theatre community in a statement issued on Monday, 9 November.

“The dignity, integrity and safety of every person are essential conditions for exercising the profession.”

The union said it does not substitute for the competent bodies that check facts and assign responsibility, and it asked that the presumption of innocence be respected. The same day, the Ministry of Culture met Hausvater to express concern and request clarifications about the situation. The ministry said it is checking, in all subordinate institutions, how harassment prevention measures under Government Decision 970/2023 are applied, while stating that it will not interfere in individual employment relations.