11. Madách International Theatre Meeting

Anna Augustynowicz has graduated from the Jagiellonian University in theatre arts. She also studied directing at the National Academy of Theatre in Krakow. Since 1992 she has been the artistic director of the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin. Throughout her career she has directed in many renowned theatres, in the Wybrzeze Theatre in Gdansk, the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, TR Warsaw, The Contemporary Theatre of Wroclaw, the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Lódz. She has realized four plays for the Television Theatre. She mainly chooses her repertoire from contemporary dramaturgy both Polish and foreign. She often finds innovatives texts that fight stereotypes both in the way we think as well as in the linguistic sphere. She has frequently realized world premieres. Anna Augustynowicz’s plays, although now and then considered controversial, are highly appreciated by critics and the audience. She has frequently received numerous awards at various theatre festivals. The director has also been a winner of Polityka Passport (1988, a prestigious prize awarded by a Polish weekly ‘Polityka’) for ‘ courageous, wise plays that touch sensitive spots of our age, as well as for artistic shape of the Contemporary Theatre’. In 2014 Augustynowicz received a Zygmunt Hubner prize as the ‘Theatre Personality’ – a prestigious award meant for outstanding theatre creators who make artistic theatre in the spirit of civic thought.