Dear Theatre-Goers!

At the end of the 2016/ 2017 artistic season, one feels like saying: this is not the end. In relation to the decision of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage pertaining to the appointment of the new directors, the future of the National Stary Theatre in its current shape known to you is in question.

The National Stary Theatre AD 2017 has become a perfectly lubricated machine, regularly producing intriguing premieres, operating with a frequency of 40 – 50 performances per month on three stages, representing Polish culture at the most prestigious foreign festivals, collecting laurels and praise and sparking valid contemporary discussions. All of this happened with attendances at the level of 99.25% – which might seem a backbreaking task, bearing in mind that we do not accept commercial compromise and constantly take risks without which art would simply become secondary and predictable.

We believe that the roots of the future are embedded in the past; therefore, the repertoire of the next five seasons proposed in the ministerial competition by Jan Klata was aimed at consistent continuation of what had been accomplished in the National Stary Theatre from 1 January 2013. It was meant to be a creative development of the philosophy of a courageous, yet based on excellent workmanship, repertoire theatre with a unique artistic, technical and administrative personnel. All of this, coupled with the satisfaction of the personnel of the Stary Theatre from joint accomplishments in recent seasons and the enthusiasm of our audience, allowed a creative task to be formulated for future seasons: answering the great question set by Stanisław Wyspiański in “Studium o Hamlecie” (“Study of Hamlet”), i.e. “What Is In Poland – To Think About?” We shared the hardship and the joy related to the search for answers with such artists as Luk Perceval, Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski, Krzysztof Garbaczewski, Anna Smolar and Konstantin Bogomolov. We also planned to invite Grzegorz Jarzyna and young talented directors to join the group of the directors working for the Stary Theatre, i.e. Paweł Miśkiewicz, Jan Klata and Marcin Libera.

During such uncertain times, we can only hope that the important performances that you appreciated every evening, which were presented and discussed at national and international festivals, will continue to be the showpiece of the Stary Theatre and remain a part of its repertoire and that the hitherto heritage will not be forfeited. At the same time, we wish to inform you that we have planned the repertoire until the end of this year, hoping that you will still be able to see the great accomplishments of the Stary Theatre team. Furthermore, the end of the current season was marked by a great number of invitations that we received to various festivals: Madrid, Sao Paulo and Shanghai, as well as presentations in Poland – Bydgoszcz, Wrocław and Warsaw; we are very happy due to this and would like to congratulate all the artists and the Theatre’s employees who were involved in the preparation of our performances.

We would like to wholeheartedly thank you for four and a half seasons spent together when Jan Klata served as the Theatre’s director; for your enthusiastic reactions, for letters written straight from the heart; what is more, we would like to encourage you – the theatre-goers – to accept part of the responsibility for the fate of the national stage – without you, our work would not matter much.