"I'll turn the festival into an established international festival platform featuring Slovenian and foreign theatre productions," he said as he presented his vision to the public in June.
Novak deems it important to facilitate communication between Slovenian and European cultures, so he intends to focus on cooperation, networking, and circulation of ideas and theatre actors.
He would also like the festival to attract new audiences, to get better embedded in the local community and the broader region.
The festival will formally open on 19 October with Scandal in St. Florian Valley, a major co-production by Eduard Miler to honour Ivan Cankar (1876-1918), one of the most prolific Slovenian playwrights.
Before that, an exhibition will open to pay tribute to Jernej Šugman, one of the most acclaimed Slovenian theatre actors, who died last December aged 48.
Although the festival has been overhauled and expanded under Novak, it remains focussed on domestic theatre despite having already opened up to foreign audiences and productions under his predecessor Alja Predan.
The ten productions competing for awards were selected by Zala Dobovšek from more than 80 productions made in the 2017/2018 season, which she said had not been radically different from the previous seasons.
She noticed that theatres were not inclined to stage younger-generation playwrights or experiment, but praised young directors Nina Rajić Kranjac and Žiga Divjak for their "extremely lucid poetics".
The competing productions will have English surtitles to attract international audiences. "We want the festival to promote Slovenian theatre creativity in a broader international arena," Novak stressed at a news conference in Maribor on Tuesday.
The competition programme is here.
Eleven shows will be performed as part of an accompanying programme, which features Slovenian productions from the past season seen as having achieved a breakthrough.
The international stage will bring four productions from Italy, Croatia and Macedonia.
The festival is introducing productions by theatre academies from abroad, which will join Slovenian student productions as part of the Student Theatre section.
Other novelties are Young Theatre, a section dedicated to teachers and theatre workers, a day of Slovenian theatre actors, and talks immediately after the productions.
The festival will also launch a book on the winners of the Borštnik Ring to stress "the significance of the finest award in Slovenian theatre acting", said Novak.
This year's winner is Janez Škof, a member of the SNG Drama Ljubljana ensemble.
As part of its efforts to go international, the festival has changed its name to the Maribor Theatre Festival some time ago.
Its Slovenian name is still the Borštnik Meeting, in honour of actor Ignacij Borštnik (1858-1919), considered the pioneer of modern Slovenian professional theatre.
