Arts & Theatre · Theatre
Serkan Keskin
8 dates on sale
On tour
Every date the ticketer lists, worldwide · venue time
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Ten seasons as Harpagon: Serkan Keskin and the Semaver bench
A founding Semaver Kumpanya actor who became a household name through Leyla ile Mecnun, Keskin has now played Molière's miser for ten sold-out seasons while directing the company's revived corporate thriller Metot — eight dates are currently on sale.
İzmit, Kasapoğlu, and a company founded in 2002
Serkan Keskin was born on 25 November 1977 in İzmit. He came to acting through a theatre course run inside İzmit City Theatre, which he joined in 1997; the course sat under the general artistic direction of Işıl Kasapoğlu, and among those teaching him were Barış Falay and Zuhal Gencer. Between 1999 and 2002 he studied at the theatre school of Akademi İstanbul, where Kasapoğlu headed the department. His professional record dates from 1998.
When Semaver Kumpanya was founded in 2002 he was part of it, and he has spent most of his working life inside that company as both actor and director. The parts he took there and at İzmit City Theatre moved across the standard repertoire and well beyond it: Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Twelfth Night and Titus Andronicus; Molière's The Miser; Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children; Scenes from an Execution and The Birds. Turkish writers ran through the same seasons — Orhan Kemal, Turgut Özakman, Sait Faik.
Directing came early and stayed occasional rather than constant: Deniz Kızı in 2003, Resmi Geçit in 2008, then Metot in 2012, the production that has since become the company's second calling card alongside Cimri.
İsmail Abi, and a cinema run that collected prizes
Wider recognition arrived in 2011 with İsmail Abi in the TRT comedy Leyla ile Mecnun, a part he carried through the show's long life to 2023. Television kept returning to him in character roles rather than leads: Avrupa Yakası in 2008, Beş Kardeş in 2015, Nef'i in Muhteşem Yüzyıl: Kösem in 2017, Mucize Doktor in 2021.
The film work is the denser half of the screen record — more than thirty titles since 2004, with directors including Yavuz Turgul, Zeki Ökten, Reha Erdem and Onur Ünlü. Sonbahar came in 2007, Kosmos in 2009, Av Mevsimi in 2010, Yeraltı in 2012, then a crowded 2014 of İtirazım Var, Silsile and Limonata. He also appears in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Ahlat Ağacı.
The prizes cluster around that period. He took the 32nd İsmail Dümbüllü Award in 2012. In 2014 he won best actor at the Golden Orange festival for İtirazım Var and best supporting actor at Adana's Golden Boll for Silsile, and in 2015 the Sadri Alışık cinema awards named him most successful drama actor, again for İtirazım Var. Alongside this he has recorded songs, usually as duets with Ali Atay and Osman Sonant, among them Bu Kıza Kadar, Kolpa and İtirazım Var.
Cimri: the role he has not put down since 2016
Semaver Kumpanya's Cimri has been in the repertoire since 2016 and the company now advertises ten seasons of full houses. Tansu Biçer directs and designed the set, working from Sabahattin Eyüboğlu's translation of Molière, with dramaturgy by Bilgesu Kasapoğlu, lighting by Utku İnan, costumes by Bade Yavuz and music by Okan Kaya and Ömer Öztüyen. Keskin plays Harpagon; Sezin Bozacı's Frosine has been the performance most often singled out beside his.
The staging is deliberately light on furniture — stacked trunks doing functional duty, costume that keeps a period silhouette while reading as contemporary. Writing on tiyatronline, Yavuz Koç described a production that breaks the moulds of classical staging through Keskin's playing and sustains its comic momentum across close to two hours, singling out Bozacı's scenes opposite him for lifting the energy. A separate tiyatronline piece on the production records the same point that recurs in audience comment: Keskin's improvisation is strong enough to shift the register of the evening, and the length does not flatten attention.
A Milliyet Sanat notice from 27 July 2022, written in the company's twentieth year when Cimri was six seasons into its sold-out run, put it more bluntly — he has been Harpagon so long that he sometimes goes under himself on stage, and he uses short exchanges with the house to let both sides draw breath.
Metot, back after six years
The other production he is currently tied to is one he directs and acts in. Metot is Jordi Galceran's 2003 play about four candidates shut in a company meeting room and put through tests whose purpose is never quite stated. Zerrin Yanıkkaya translated it; Cem Yılmazer designed set and lighting, Alper Maral the sound, Aslı Ersüzer the costumes.
Reviewing it in March 2015, S. D. Karahaliloğlu called the Semaver version a psychological thriller outright, built around a competition that steadily strips its participants of principle — one candidate stays in the room rather than go to a dying parent — and argued the staging treats the audience as a fifth candidate rather than a spectator. The cast at that stage was Sarp Aydınoğlu, Sezin Bozacı, Keskin and Mustafa Kırantepe.
The play came back on 25 April 2026 after six years off, in the company's twenty-third year, with Keskin directing and playing alongside Aydınoğlu, Şebnem Hassanisoughi and Yavuz Pekman. The return gala drew a visible film and television turnout, including Alina Boz, Burak Yamantürk, Birkan Sokullu and Meriç Aral.
Autumn 2026: three plays in rotation, a Netflix lead in the pipeline
Keskin married the actor Meriç Aral in 2024; they have one child, Güneş. On the screen side, the project announced on 7 August 2025 is the one to watch: Sonra Gözler Görür, an eight-episode Netflix series produced by Ay Yapım, written by Ece Yörenç and directed by Bertan Başaran from a Hikmet Hükümenoğlu novel, with Keskin as İskender in a cast that includes Şevval Sam, Mert Fırat, Okan Yalabık and Cem Yiğit Üzümoğlu.
Stage work has not been parked around it. Semaver Kumpanya currently lists three plays in rotation — Cimri, Metot and Güzel Son, the last built around Turkish literary figures including Orhan Veli and Sait Faik. Cimri has been the touring piece: a Fişekhane main-stage matinée on 15 March 2026, an open-air night at Ankara Oran on 3 September 2026, and regular returns to the company's home at Çevre Tiyatrosu, alongside dates at Caddebostan Kültür Merkezi and Zorlu PSM's Turkcell Platinum stage.
Eight dates are on sale at the time of writing. The nearest are Cimri at Caddebostan Kültür Merkezi on 30 October 2026, from 2,150₺; Metot at Çevre Tiyatrosu on 6 November, from 1,650₺; and Cimri back at Çevre on 8 November, also from 1,650₺. Cast billing shifts by date — Sezin Bozacı, Ahmet Kaynak, Metin Alpargun, Mertcan Ertürk and Cansu Saka on the Fişekhane sheet, Canan Ergüder and Ekremcan Arslandağ among those listed for Ankara — with Keskin the fixed point.
The show, now
The evening on offer is almost always Cimri, and it is a single bill — no support act, no curtain-raiser. It runs 150 minutes in two acts with one interval, carries a +16 advisory, and starts late by British habit: the Ankara Oran open-air date on 3 September 2026 had doors at 20:00 for a 21:00 curtain, and the Çevre Tiyatrosu nights run to the same shape. Tansu Biçer's staging is sparse and portable, built on stacked trunks that are shifted into service as the scenes need them, with costume that keeps a seventeenth-century line while reading modern, lighting by Utku İnan and a score by Okan Kaya and Ömer Öztüyen; it transfers from the company's 250-ish-seat home at Çevre to much larger rooms — Fişekhane's main stage, Caddebostan Kültür Merkezi, Zorlu PSM's Turkcell Platinum stage — without redesign. Keskin's Harpagon is the reason people book: reviewers describe a near-two-hour comic engine that does not slacken, built on improvisation and short direct exchanges with the house, and note that after this many seasons he visibly corpses on stage, which audiences treat as part of the deal rather than a lapse. Sezin Bozacı's Frosine is the performance most often named alongside his, though billing rotates by date. The alternative on sale is Metot at Çevre on 6 November 2026, a tighter and much darker piece — four job candidates, one meeting room, closer to a thriller than a comedy — which Keskin directs and performs in. Çevre dates start at 1,650₺; the Caddebostan Cimri on 30 October 2026 starts at 2,150₺.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · tr.wikipedia.org · biletix.com · biletix.com · semaverkumpanya.com · semaverkumpanya.com · semaverkumpanya.com · fisekhane.com