The ceremonial announcement of the winner will take place on June 6, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. in the VILA Štvanice Theatre. The prize will traditionally take the form of a fur coat, which a young Czech designer will design for this year’s winner Maria Nina Václavková, which specializes in shoe design and has been dedicated to a sustainable production process for a long time. She is the holder of several design awards – for example The Talent of Design International Competition or the Outstanding Student Design 2017 award. A model of her Rectangle shoes is even on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The last laureate of the Mark Ravenhill Award (for 2022) was a production 27 – execution show of Jan Mydlář of the Geisslers Hofcomoedianten theater group, directed by Petr Hašek. Other awardees from previous years include directors Dušan D. Parízek, Daniela Špinar, Jiří Havelka, Ivan Krejčí, Martina Schlegelová, Adam Svozil, Martina Kinská, Mikoláš Tyc, David Šiktanc, Martin Františák and Jakub Vašíček.
As part of the festive evening, there will be a guest performance We the people! Slovak Theater Na Perón. An interactive production for four actors, in which the audience becomes Lidan citizens and their choices affect the events of the country. How will their selection turn out? The audience will find out after the awarding of the Mark Ravenhill Award, which will be presented by the director of the production My, l’ud! Peter Kocis. The theater is FLYING in collaboration with Slovak Institute In Prague, he continues his efforts to present the work of the Slovak independent theater scene to the Czech audience and thus continues the cooperation from last year, when the Slovak independent Peter Mankovecký Theater visited Prague with a production Never Forever directed by Marian Amsler.
Productions nominated for the 2023 Mark Ravenhill Award:
National Theater Prague
Cherry Man // Ivan Vyrypayev
director: Kasha Jandáčková
“An internationally recognized foreign author will write a play commissioned by the National Theater Drama, which will entrust its direction to a young talented director. Our first scene should implement exactly such bold projects. A multi-layered play in which the author deals with the feeling of guilt for his Russian origin, paraphrases the Cherry Orchard and balances on the edge between the level of personal and political responsibility, boldly directed by Kasha Jandáčková, using metaphors and black humor to name the state of the current world, which is at the end a certain era.”
Marie Spalova
South Bohemian Theater in České Budějovice
By // Ella Hickson
director: Adam Svozil
“The author of the Scottish playwright Elly Hickson is an extremely provocative and multi-layered play dealing with issues of gender inequality and artistic and life values not only in the theater world. The protagonist Ella, both in her play and in reality, uncompromisingly defines herself against the established social order and, for her, a desperately conventional and uninspiring theater environment. Directed by Adam Svozil A very remarkable production was created on the premises of the South Bohemian Theatre, which opens up the essential topics of today’s times without presenting simple solutions or taking itself too seriously, and it manages to organically connect a strong appeal with an appropriate perspective. A great deal of credit goes to the cast, which brilliantly manages to alternate delicately intimate positions with combative appeal and humorous exaggeration.”
Sylvie Vůjtková
Švand’s Theater Prague
Trojan women // David Košťák
directed by: Anna Turlo
“David Košťák’s play The Trojan Woman, inspired by Euripides’ text, has a very topical subtext. It shows the backstage of the war, in which he does not fight directly, but accumulates all the more suffering. The testimonies of three women of different social status show that no one escapes suffering. The connection with Ukrainian women creators, especially the director Anna Turlo, and excellent acting performances in the intimate environment of the Švand Theater Studio brings a very impressive experience.”
Jana Soprová
Švand’s Theater Prague
At first glance // Suzie Miller
director: Lucie Ferenzová
“An unexpected event changes the life and way of thinking of the self-confident lawyer Tessa, who until then wins every case. Now she herself becomes a victim of the legal system and loses faith in justice. In Suzie Miller’s well-constructed monodrama, the actress Marie Štípková changes many positions: from ferocity, insensitive cynicism and self-centered competitiveness to vulnerability, sensitivity and helplessness. Although her combativeness does not leave her, she eventually begins to doubt both the system and herself. We know from statistics that every tenth woman in the Czech Republic is raped, but only 5% of them report the crime, which is largely due to the victim’s fear that no one will believe them. Everyone should see the chilling production directed by Lucie Ferenzová in the Švanda Theater. Maybe then he would believe and understand more easily.”
Lenka Veverkova
Drama Studio Ústí nad Labem
Hanzelkazikmund // Kateřina Součková & Adam Svozil
director: Adam Svozil
“Inspired by the life stories of famous Czech travelers Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund, dramaturg Kateřina Součková and director Adam Svozil wrote a theatrical text that goes beyond the biographical genre and bridges the gap between past and present. Its central theme is the transformation of the phenomenon of travel in the 20th and 21st centuries, not only in connection with the turbulent changes of political regimes in Czechoslovakia. The production solution is imbued with playfulness in all aspects, which benefits from the endless possibilities of movement of the theatrical character and the inventive use of metatheatricality. The functionality of the concept is guaranteed by the Brecht-trained acting of Andrea Uhlík Berecková, Petr Uhlík, Klára Suchá, Jan Hušek, Lukáš Černoch and Adam Ernest.”
Petra Zachatá
Slovakian theater Uherské hradiště
Thirteen times as a witness // Jan Šotkovský
director: Lukáš Kopecký
“Playwright and dramatist Jan Šotkovský is no newcomer to the comedy and entertainment theater genre. His last two plays are a completely deliberate attempt to dominate the film genre of romantic comedy on the stage today (besides Thirteen Times as a Witness, they are the Witches performed in his home Vejmink). Šotkov develops the romantic comedy genre in a functional theatrical way and plays with its genre rules with insight and irony. The comedy was written directly at the request of the Slovak Theatre, i.e. directly on the body of the protagonists – the production directed by Lukáš Kopecký relies on these qualities of the text and capitalizes on them.“
David Thrush
Theater under Palmovka Prague
A woman film critic // Tomáš Dianiška, Petr Cífka
director: Tomáš Dianiška, Petr Cífka & others.
“Theatrical adaptation by director and playwright Tomáš Dianiška, whose basis was the anonymous blog of the same name, is not only a witty and intelligent humor-filled production with a flood of gags and pop culture references in brilliantly pointed dialogues, but also an intimate, ironically exaggerated probe into the pitfalls of partner relationships. In the dynamic interplay between Barbora Kubátová and Jakub Albrecht, more serious and current topics such as late motherhood, social stereotypes or disappointment from unfulfilled dreams are revealed against the background of grotesque situations.
Tatjana Lazorčáková
Center for contemporary drama
Since January 2010, the LETÍ Theater has been implementing a project called the Center for Contemporary Drama under the auspices of Václav Havel. The aim of the project is to support the creation of new drama, support of new productions of contemporary drama, circulation of texts, authors, creators and productions within the EU, theoretical reflection of contemporary drama and promotion of contemporary drama among the public. As part of the project, the LETÍ theater joined, among other things, the international network of theaters dedicated to contemporary drama, Fabulamundi.
Tags: Mark Ravenhill Award production contemporary play presented thirteenth time
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