SERAP GÜNAYDIN

An actor with a credit list and almost no biography

Serap Günaydın is one of those stage actors whose working record is easy to find and whose life story is not. The Turkish theatre databases that carry her profile list the plays and nothing else: Sinema & Tiyatro states plainly that no biography has been entered for her, and SinemaTürk's entry returns "biyografi bulunamadı" against a single television credit. There is no published birth year, no birthplace, no conservatoire listed, no interview on the record that sets out how she came to the profession.

What the listings do establish is continuity. The oldest theatre credit attached to her name is Köhne Bizans Operası in 1993; the most recent is Şahları da Vururlar, which she has been performing since 2022 and which is still selling tickets. Every production in between belongs to the same company, Ortaoyuncular, working out of the same building on İstiklal Caddesi. In an industry where actors move between private companies, municipal theatres and television, that is an unusual shape for a career — closer to the old ensemble model than to the freelance norm.

The company she belongs to

Ortaoyuncular was founded in Istanbul on 14 March 1980 by the playwright, director and actor Ferhan Şensoy. Its first production was Şahları da Vururlar, and it won Şensoy the Avni Dilligil jury special award that same year. The company built a repertoire almost entirely out of Şensoy's own texts and adaptations, and its roster over four decades has taken in performers including Demet Akbağ, Derya Baykal, Tuncel Kurtiz and Rasim Öztekin. Company productions collected the 1988 Sanat Kurumu award for İstanbul'u Satıyorum and a 1998 Afife award for Kurtiz as best supporting actor.

The company's home came after a fire at its earlier venue, the Şan. Şensoy took a stake in the Ses on İstiklal Caddesi and in 1989 returned the former cinema to theatrical use, reopening it as Ses 1885 — Ortaoyuncular. Günaydın's first listed credit arrives four years into that tenancy, which means her whole stage record sits inside the Ses years.

The work, 1993 to 2018

The run of credits is steady rather than showy. After Köhne Bizans Operası in 1993 come Fişne Pahçesu around the turn of the millennium, Kökü Bitti Zıkkım Zulada in 2001 and Kahraman Osman the following year. Database years differ by one season in several cases — Sinema & Tiyatro dates Fişne Pahçesu to 1999 and Kahraman Osman to 2001 where Tiyatrolar gives 2000 and 2002 — which is the usual consequence of a production opening in one calendar year and running into the next.

The 2010s brought İşsizler Cennete Gider, Nasri Hoca ve Muhalif Eşeği in 2012, Masal Müfettişi in 2013, Nereye de Gidiyor Lan Bu Gemi? in 2017 and Bom! in 2018. One credit breaks the pattern: on Batı in 2017 she is listed not as a performer but as assistant director, the only non-acting job in the published record and a sign she was working on the production side of the company as well as on stage.

Her screen record is thin by comparison. SinemaTürk carries one television credit, the series Varsayalım İsmail, and no film work; the databases record no awards to her name. The stage listings are where the career actually is.

After Şensoy: the November 2022 revival

Ferhan Şensoy died on 31 August 2021, and the question of what Ortaoyuncular would be without the man who wrote most of its repertoire was answered by going back to the beginning. Şensoy had intended to revive Şahları da Vururlar with an audience in 2020; the pandemic stopped it. His daughters Müjgan Ferhan Şensoy and Derya Şensoy took on the estate and brought the production back in November 2022, 42 years after the original, as part of the 26th Istanbul Theatre Festival. It was also the reopening of the Ses auditorium itself.

The revival is directed by Volkan M. Sarıöz, with dramaturgy by Yavuz Pekman, set and costume design by Başak Özdoğan, sound and lighting by Akın Yılmaz, choreography by Nebi Birgi, and the original music by Fuat Güner and Şensoy. The cast runs to eleven and includes Celal Belgil, Erkan Üçüncü, Günaydın, Özkan Aksu, Elif Durdu Şensoy, Orkun Akyıldız, Sefa Tantoğlu and İlksen Ökte, alongside the musicians Nejat Yavaşoğulları, Gökhan Şeşen and Burhan Şeşen. The company publishes the cast as a block without individual role attributions, so which part Günaydın plays is not stated in the programme material.

The play is a musical comedy set in Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi, built on a name mix-up that lands an ordinary citizen — carrying the name Omar Khayyam — in prison as a suspected intelligence agent. The English title the company uses is Even Shahs Are Bound to Fall. The satire aims at a ruling class detached from a population under economic pressure, and in 1980 it was read as much about Turkey's own westernisation arguments as about Tehran.

Where things stand in October 2026

Four years in, the production is still the company's anchor and Günaydın is still in it. Ticketing listings this autumn show a performance on 17 October 2026, then 24 October at 8pm, 25 October at 6pm and 1 November at 6pm, with earlier dates on 13 March and 23 April 2026 already played — a pattern of one or two performances a week rather than a block run. Biletix lists seats from 800 lira; the theatre quotes 700 for the balcony and 1,000 for the stalls, with boxes at 850 and student tickets at 500 sold only at the box office on production of a student card.

Audience sentiment, where it is quantified, is good: the Tiyatrolar listing for the production carries a rating of 8.5 out of 10 from 612 users as of 19 October 2026. The show is rated 13 and over. Beyond that, published criticism of the revival has focused on the text rather than the ensemble, and no review on the record singles out Günaydın's performance by name.

The room itself

Part of what makes the current run worth noting is where it happens. The site began in 1885 as a wooden circus and performance yard behind the Halep Pasajı, became a theatre in 1904 after a fire, then cycled through identities — Varyete Tiyatrosu, Ses Opereti from 1942, Dormen Tiyatrosu after a 1963 refit — before running as a cinema from 1972. The building was largely rebuilt in 1984 with only its façade kept, and Ortaoyuncular took over the auditorium in 1989. By 2019 it was being described as the last surviving theatre on İstiklal.

The practical details are old-fashioned to match: the address is İstiklal Caddesi, Halep İşhanı 62/90 in Beyoğlu, and the box office opens from 1pm to 8pm on performance days for the seats the online platforms do not sell.