Jakub Skrzywanek

Jakub Skrzywanek
♦️Director, writer, and creator of performative installations. A graduate of the Faculty of Drama Directing at the AST Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, Documentary Film Direction at the Wajda Master School and Polish Philology at the University of Wrocław. He also studied under a scholarship at the Charles University of Prague and New Theatre Laboratory programme (Nowy Proxima Theatre in Kraków in collaboration with GORKI Theater in Berlin and Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers), during which he created a famous play To my jesteśmy przyszłością! / We are the Future! with teenagers

♦️In 2016 he made his début with Cynkowi chłopcy / Boys in Zinc based on reports by Svetlana Alexievich at the Jerzy Szaniawski Dramatic Theatre in Wałbrzych, before taking it to Poland’s main theatre festivals (notably Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy) where he won awards at the m-Teatr Festival in Koszalin and the Grand Prix for the best début at the First Contact Festival in Toruń. Since then his performances are constantly hosted at the most important Polish festivals and occupy leading positions in rankings prepared by theater critics.
♦️Today he collaborates with the important Polish theaters:
Powszechny Theater in Warsaw, the Polski Theatre in Poznań,
the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin. He has also worked with the Capitol Music Theatre in Wrocław, Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole, the Teatr Zagłębia in Sosnowiec and Theatre 21 (A theater that employs actors with disabilities, mainly with a down syndrome), where he directed Superspektakl / Supershow with Justyna Sobczyk as a coproduction with the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw.
In his work, he often takes up current topics of public debate, trying at the same time to undermine established myths and debunk social taboos. His performances often take the form of epic shows combining elements of literature, documentary theater, and work on archives. Educational and pedagogical issues are also important in his work. He often prepares workshops for children and teenagers. He created several performances for this audience, in which he told about the problems today’s youth have to deal with
♦️His most acclaimed productions were part of the “Triptych on Violence” prepared in 2019 as part of the Anti-Fascist Year, which was opened by the play “Mein Kampf” (the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw) which provided the first opportunity to challenge Adolf Hitler’s book on stage, and ask why ‒ after the experience of the Second World War ‒ have fascism and national socialism resurfaced as attractive ideologies, with nationalist banners and slogans rapidly replacing pride in a multicultural, diverse, united Europe?
♦️The show was very positively received all over the world. Hundreds of journals wrote about him, including Financial Times, New York Times, Der Freitag, Jerusalem Post, and L’Espresso. The performance was invited to many of the most important international festivals from Australia to Europe. It has already been presented at the “Palm OFF fest” in Prague, and it will be shown in Stockholm at the “Bergman Festival”.
The next part of the “Triptych on Violence” was “Kaspar Hauser” (the Contemporary Theater in Szczecin), which critics received very enthusiastically, especially at the Divine Comedy Festival, which is the most important international festival in Poland. The last part of the Triptych will be – the Cremator- based on a novel by Ladislav Fuks. A performance about the Holocaust and Romanian collaboration in WWII was prepared in 2020 for the Romanian Teatrul Tineretului Piatra Neamt, led by Gianina Carbunariu.
♦️In 2019 the Dialog monthly published Skrzywanek’s début drama Pogrom alfonsów, Warszawa 1905 / Pogrom of Pimps, Warsaw 1905, which reached the semifinals of the Gdynia Drama Prize.