Tag Archives: Ambassadors of International Culture

Featured Slideshow, Home, Uncategorized, Upcoming

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Video December 22, 2020 HannaB_home

Special Thanks to PAAA-Polish American Arts Association!

“They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Play!” GoFundMe Campaign

January 17, 2016 HannaB_home

Help Ambassador Theater, the Italian Embassy, and the Italian Cultural Institute in premiering Dario Fo's play "They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay!" this March.

Thank you for your friendship and support!

They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay

Celebration of Dario Fo Feb 26 – March 26, 2016

January 16, 2016 HannaB_home

Celebrating Dario Fo's 90th Birthday with They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay! at Ambassador Theater in Washington DC from aticc on Vimeo.

The Italian Cultural Institute and the Ambassador Theater celebrate 90th Birthday of Dario Fo, Italian satirist, playwright, director, actor and composer, and Nobel Prize Winner with the following shows and events:

JOHAN PADAN AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
(Johan Padan a la Descoverta de le Americhe) By Dario Fo
Featuring Mario Pirovano
Feb 26, 2016 MORE INFO to REGISTER will come soon! Do not call please!
at the Embassy of Italy

MASTER CLASS with MARIO PIROVANO

Italian actor, storyteller, translator and interpreter of Dario Fo’s monologues.

MON, FEB 29, 2016 at 7 PM at FLASHPOINT, 916 G St., NW, Washington DC

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!
By Dario Fo
Translated by Jon Laskin and Michael Aquilante
Produced By Hanna Bondarewska
Directed by Joe Martin
March 3-March 26, 2016
at FLASHPOINT, 916 G Street, NW, Washington DC

JOIN OUR CIRCLE OF SUPPORTERS: https://www.gofundme.com/y8c72qp8
TICKETS ONLINE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dario Fo, an Italian actor-author, can claim to be the most frequently performed living playwright in the world. Born on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy in 1926, he made his debut in theatre in 1952 and is still writing and performing. His work has gone through various phases, always in company with his actress wife Franca Rame. His stage career began with political cabaret, moved on to one-act farces, and then to satirical comedies in his so-called ‘bourgeois phase’ in the early 1960s when he became a celebrated figure on TV and in Italy’s major theatres. In 1968, he broke with conventional theatre to set up a co operative dedicated to producing politically committed work in what were then known as ‘alternative venues’. His best known work, including Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Mistero Buffo and Trumpets and Raspberries, dates from this period. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, and in the official citation the Swedish Royal Academy stated that he had ‘emulated the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden.’

ABOUT MARIO PIROVANO

Mario Pirovano has been working closely with Dario Fo and Franca Rame from 1983 to 2013.

Actor in one man shows ‘Mistero Buffo’, ‘Johan Padan a la Descoverta de le Americhe’, ‘Lu Santo Jullare Françesco’, ‘Vorrei morire anche stasera se dovessi sapere che non è servitor a niente’, and ‘Ruzzante’ by Dario Fo ‘Le Jeu de obin et Marion’ by Adam de la Halle, and ‘Il Papa cowboy: vita, avventure, battaglie di Papa Giulio II’ by Marco Ghelardi

Performances and Workshops from 2003 to 2013 Italy, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Australia, China, Palestine, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Canada, United States of America.

Translations by Mario Pirovano
‘Johan Padan a la Descoverta de le Americhe’ By Dario Fo:
‘Johan Padan and the Discovery of America’, ed. Tipografica Perugia
‘Lu Santo Jullare Françesco’ by Dario Fo:
‘Francis the Holy Jester’, published by Beautiful Books, London
‘Ruzzante’ by Dario Fo: ‘The Wonderful Ruzante’ (unpublished)
‘Mistero Buffo’ by Dario Fo:
‘Comic Mistery play’ (unpublished)

ABOUT JOHAN PADAN AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

Let us state clearly that this is not the lamentable history of the massacres committed by the conquerors on the Indios.
This is not the story of the usual losers. It is rather the epos of the victory of a population of Indios.
There are two fundamental types of chronicles of the discovery and conquest of America. On the one hand the stories written by the scribes following the conquerors. On the other, the tales of the coprotagonists who do not count, the “lastagonists”, from the dirty ranks, who come to tell their adventures having lived very close, even often right in the middle of the conquered, as prisoners…and even slaves!
Johan Padan is one of these unlucky adventurers, a gallows-bird of the fifteenth century, who has found himself right in the middle of thee discovery of America.
Johan Padan is a real figure, maybe his name is not exactly Johan Padan, but his actions are real: indeed they come from dozens of true stories told by the very men who lived them, the extras from the rank-and-file coming from all countries of Europe. All desperate people who do not count for anything in the official history of the discovery, but who arrived in the Indies, came in contact with the local people and found that they could count for something, or even a lot!
Johan Padan, a man from the mountains, does not like to sail but is compelled in spite of himself to make the great voyage. He is kidnapped by cannibals who fatten him up with the intention of eating him. He is saved by a stroke of luck and he becomes shaman, chief-wizard, doctor and is called “son of the rising sun”. He ha also compelled to teach the stories of the Gospels to thousands of Indios. Apocryphal Gospel of course.
The simple seamen, the ranks of little worth who switched sides with the conquered were many more than we used to think. And we must be clear: they did not content themselves with surviving, but they worked as strategists and military trainers so that the Indios could resist for a period of time against the invasion of the Christians.
We know the names of some of them, the best known are: Guerrero, Altavilla, Cabeza de Vaca. Hans Staden.
But today we offer the extraordinary chance to know in person and from his own voice the tale of the most renowned of all the renegade foot soldiers: Johan Padan, ‘son of the rising sun’. “ Dario Fo

ABOUT THEY DON'T PAY? WE WON'T PAY!

Desperate housewives take justice in their own hands in this Nobel prize winner's hilarious farce of civil disobedience. The empowering story in which direct democracy is the way to go when government fails to protect citizens' rights, was inspired by real life events of workers' uprising in 1974's Italy. Hugely popular and more relevant than ever, They don't pay? We won't pay! delivers a serious message in a ridiculous, absurdist fashion generating truckloads of laughter and delighting with its lovable and colorful characters.
Meet Antonia, who during a food riot takes supplies from a supermarket and hides them from her law abiding husband Giovanni behind a dress of her best friend Margherita. Follow the chaos, which ensues once Giovanni and his friend and Margherita's spouse Luigi are told about Margherita's miracle pregnancy and the police gets involved. Be prepared for this uproarious 'boulevard comedy' to keep you glued to your seat feeling entertained and inspired at the same time!

Though the piece has been called a “comedy of hunger,” it is also about the bigger financial farce that results if the victims of financial collapse—brought about by capitalism run-amok—are asked to pay for the disaster while the guilty parties are bailed out. This play by a master playwright and performer, is both physical comedy and a comedy of wit, sometimes in “boulevard” style. Fo has roots in Commedia dell’Arte, and the influence shows in this modern farce. In awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature—there is no theatre category! —the Nobel committee remarked in 1997 that Dario Fo “emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden.” His plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world, including in US, Argentina, Chile, England, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Yugoslavia.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS

Jon Laskin and Michael Aquilante are writers and theater translators who have co-translated several works of Nobel Prize-winning Italian playwright Dario Fo, including “Accidental Death of an Anarchist,” “The Devil with Boobs,” and his classic political farce “They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!” Jon and Michael’s critically

acclaimed translations have been staged in many cities around the world, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Anchorage, London, Dublin, Brisbane, Ottawa, and Toronto. “Anarchist” was honored with Toronto’s prestigious Dora Award, while “Boobs” received an L. A. Weekly Theater Award.

Currently, the Laskin/Aquilante team is developing adapted translations of another Italian Nobel Prize winner, Luigi Pirandello: “The Truth About Truth,” set in today’s Washington, DC, is based on “It Is So If You Think So”; while “Willie the First” is Pirandello’s “Henry IV” in a modern Mafia context. In addition to Laskin/Aquilante’s theatrical endeavors, 2016 will see the publication of their graphic book, “Wings of Wax and Feathers,” an urban-savvy retelling of the Icarus myth.

Featured Slideshow, Smartphones

LAST TWO WEEKS of SMARTPHONES – A Smashing Hit!

November 4, 2015 HannaB_home

Ambassador Theater presents DC Premiere of
Smartphones, A Pocket-Size Farce by Emilio Williamsâ€‹
Directed by Joe Bannoâ€‹
with Ariana Almajan, Tekle Ghebremeschelâ€‹, Moriah Elizabeth Whitemanâ€‹, Shravan Aminâ€‹ and Hanna Bondarewskaâ€‹
At FLASHPOINT, 916 G Street, NW, Washington DC
OCT 20 – NOV 15, 2015
THU – SAT at 8 PM
SAT & SUN at 2 PM
TICKETS ONLINE

The Trap, Upcoming

The Open Theatre of Tadeusz RÃ³Å¼ewicz

March 9, 2015 HannaB_home

The Open Theatre of Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz

By Daniel Gerould

Although he has not written anything new for the theatre since The Trap (Pulapka, 1981), Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz remains the most provocative and original Polish playwright of the post-war period. His probing of the boundaries traditionally assigned to theatre has put him in the forefront of artistic innovators along with Kantor and Grotowski. Outstanding directors have sought to realize his work in production, despite inherent tensions between the author's radically experimental propositions and the nature of theatre itself.

With his first performed play, The Card Index ( Kartoteka, 1960), RóÅ¼ewicz (already a major poet) introduced a new theatrical language of fragmented structure and imagistic montage, which, at first, seemed disorienting but eventually came to be accepted as a quintessential expression of post-war sensibility. For the generation of Poles who came of age in 1939, the experience of wholesale death and destruction during the war and occupation had rendered obsolete notions of beauty, high ideals, and noble words. A new aesthetic, RóÅ¼ewicz felt, had to take Auschwitz as its basic premise. Literature as it had existed until then was simply a lie. Repudiating ideologies, moral judgments and intellectual speculations as empty abstractions, the author of The Trap clung to the bare facts of human life as the only truths and the only values.

Of Polish playwrights since 1945, RóÅ¼ewicz has been the most restless experimenter with form. In a number of his works for the stage he undertakes an ontological analysis of theatre that questions the very assumptions that make performance possible. Recognizing that reality will not submit to the artistic conceptions of the past, the Polish poet strives to go beyond the limits of the genre. In rejecting hierarchical notions of high and low, foreground and background, beginning, middle and end, RóÅ¼ewicz essays a kind of drama that starts at point zero with an undifferentiated aleatory mass of sights and sounds and persists as pure duration.

RóÅ¼ewicz has repeatedly voiced the "desire to write a play that would be both truly realistic and at the same time poetic." By rendering poetry realistic and realism poetic, the playwright has achieved his goal in many of his dramas. His work is realistic in the sense of being totally immersed in existence in all its corporeality; the ordinary, the banal and the bodily are the playwright's raw materials which he refuses to imbue with any transcendental meaning. But RóÅ¼ewicz is an unorthodox "realism" unencumbered by illusionistic conventions. Externals, such as plot and cause and-effect sequentiality, are eliminated in favor of an interior drama that reveals life as it is experienced in the depths of stillness.

To paint a picture of everyday life in which nothing out of the ordinary happens, the author of The Trap favors the simplest means: emptiness among events, silence between words, waiting. Action, the most basic element of drama in the traditionalist view, is considered by RóÅ¼ewicz to be the antithesis of realism and thus the negation of true theatre. "My plays have no endings," the Polish poet has declared. Rather than the temporal unfolding of a plot, he strives for the simple duration of a given situation. His aim is the creation of an "open theatre" without fixed perimeters where scenes can be re-ordered or added at will. RóÅ¼ewicz’s method of composition is a poetic counterpoint and collage of images producing a polyphonic form capable of accommodating a rich mixture of styles ranging from the colloquial and salacious to elegant parody and pastiche of fin-de-siècle fashions and literary traditions.

Questioning the separation of theory from practice, RóÅ¼ewicz has produced a new kind of script that is half treatise and polemic with his predecessors, in which extended stage directions serve as a commentary to interrupt the action and disintegrate the dramatic form. The lengthy stage directions are also arguments with all future directors with whom the playwright may conceivably collaborate. His concept of "open theatre" involves the creation of works that can be completed only in the theatre when director, designer and performers confront the text-and one another.

For RóÅ¼ewicz, the struggle between a play and its realization on stage is the crowning moment of the whole theatrical process. "What I like best in the theatre are the rehearsals," the playwright avows. "When the director fights with everything and everyone. The drama of the battle over the shape of the 'performance'." The texts that RóÅ¼ewicz produces are designed to heighten the conflict by resisting the efforts of theatre artists to dominate the author. "I've written my plays," the author explains, "so as to make difficulties for the directors who stage them, not to make their lives easy."

RóÅ¼ewicz has been fascinated with Kafka ever since he first visited Prague during the Stalin years when the Czech author was forbidden reading. Along with Chekhov and Beckett, Kafka serves as a model for RóÅ¼ewicz’s concept of inner drama and directly inspired two of the author's last dramas. The Hunger Artist, a highly personal adaptation of Kafka's tale, explores the creative process and the relation of artist to society.

Loosely based on the writer's diaries and letters, The Trap is an enigmatic work that "sets traps" for literal-minded critics, directors and audiences. Not one of the Czech author's literary works is ever mentioned (except the generic "Letter to His Father"), nor does the name Kafka once appear. This is hardly the usual life of an artist in which titles and names are constantly dropped. We may ask: is The Trap a biographical play about Kafka? RóÅ¼ewicz himself denies that this is the case, insisting that his task as poet, after absorbing masses of facts about the Czech writer, was to depart as far as possible from the documentary material so that his own drama could come into being.

In fact, the Polish author is more concerned with Kafka's inmost fears than with the realia of his life, and except for a few fragments from the letters, RóÅ¼ewicz leaves his sources discreetly uncited. The Trap dramatizes anxieties and nightmares of the artist Franz as he himself experiences them in relation to his father, his family, his friend, and his fiancée. And despite his attempts to escape the many threats of confinement-existential, societal and historical-assailing him from all sides, the traps are too cunning for Franz. At first sight the highly fluid structures of time and space that RóÅ¼ewicz has created for The Trap make the play seem formless and meandering. The play, however, actually has a firm skeleton of recurring phrases, images and motifs. It is only superficially an "amorphous" play, RóÅ¼ewicz argues,"less like the crown of a tree than the underground roots intertwined and growing in all directions. And therefore the length-in a temporal sense-of a scene on the stage does not always correspond to the length of the duration of that 'scene' or to the space that it occupies in the text."

The playwright uses Tableau XII, "At the Barber's", to illustrate the drama's temporal indeterminacy and elasticity. "The hidden magnitude of that scene is many times greater than what is shown taking place on the stage. It is a scene that comprises the past and the future lurking in the present. … The roots are still hidden in the soil, in the darkness, of the future." The scene takes place in 1914 as war is declared on Serbia, and at the same time the Barber's assistant Vic abuses the Jewish Gentleman like a Nazi thug some twenty years later.

Structured as a series of tableaux, The Trap is a family photo album through which we can move backwards and forwards. The central image embodying all the play's dangers, the "trap" is as much biology as history. It is lurking everywhere-as the body in which Franz is imprisoned and as the camp (Auschwitz) to which his sisters will be sent. The "trap" is simultaneously present at all times, in all scenes, extending beyond Franz to the world at large. Throughout the play the Nazis are waiting behind the scenes-represented by the Black Wall. At the denouement of The Trap, what has until this point been the tragedy of a family, and of an individual victimized by the family, becomes the tragedy of the Jews. As the actors playing Kafka and his family take their bows, the Executioner-Guards come out from behind the Black Wall that opens at the back of the stage and brutally push the performers off to the trains leaving for the death camps. As the wall closes, only desperate fingers and palms of hands can be seen.

For Jerzy Jarocki, a frequent RóÅ¼ewicz collaborator who directed The Trap in 1992, the drama grows out of the confrontation between Kafka's apocalyptic forebodings and RóÅ¼ewicz’s own experiences of the war and the Holocaust. Significantly, it is not the sensitive Franz, but his blunt pragmatic Father who scents the coming of the Executioners and forecasts the Holocaust. Franz is too obsessed with the inner concentration camp of creativity to which his art has condemned him to have direct knowledge of the approaching Nazis. Whenever the Executioner-Guards appear, he is in a state of dreaming. Literature, which is Franz's fate, proves perilous to his life.

Built on a poetics of heterogeneity, The Trap consists of realistic dialogue, long multi-layered conversations, remembrances, quotations, descriptions, visions, dreams and events taking place outside Franz's consciousness as well as scenes occurring in his presence but not perceived by him. Recurrence and transformation are devices that bind the diverse layers into a whole. Felice's teeth, ready to devour the artist, become the gold crowns of the corpses at the extermination camp Majdanek. The huge wardrobe that for Franz seems a tombstone appears to his Father as a means of salvation in which the family can hide from its persecutors. Father and son pairs occur in different modalities. Despite (or perhaps because of) the writer's instructions to bum his works, Max becomes Franz's "wardrobe" that will preserve his "children" from destruction. Franz's supposed son by Grete is a monster (as he has been for his Father), the revenge of nature on the artist for giving himself exclusively to the creative imagination.

The entire drama is punctuated by the presence of Franz's Animula, or little soul, a childhood double, who, RóÅ¼ewicz tells us in one of his permissive stage directions, may appear at any point throughout the performance . The playwright has written several such appearances into the text, as, for example, in Tableau Ill where Animula watches Franz's dream of his Father's enactment of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, and in Tableau XV where the "little soul" is a silent witness to the deportations through the Black Wall. Never does Animula identify with any of the characters or actions, remaining on stage alone after everyone has gone and leaving the theatre with the last spectator. If the Executioner-Guards take us ahead into a historical future, Animula always brings us back to a timeless past of childhood and its open eyed perceptions of adult horrors-noncommittal, non-judgmental, non comprehending.

RóÅ¼ewicz is only one of many late twentieth-century playwrights who have found in the Czech author's life and work inspiration for their own dramas, but The Trap may well be the most penetrating treatment of Kafka's psychic dilemma. It is curious to note to what extent RóÅ¼ewicz's intensely personal, Polish viewpoint anticipates that of the British writer Alan Bennett, who analyzes Kafka's predicament in almost identical terms, although his own plays on the subject are radically dissimilar.

In his "Author's Note" of 1987 to Two Kafka Plays (Kafka's Dick and The Insurance Man), Bennett views Kafka as a prey to traps both biological and historical. "Death took no chances with Kafka and laid three traps for his life," Bennett writes. "Parched and voiceless from TB of the larynx, he was forty, the victim, as he himself said, of a conspiracy by his own body. But had his lungs not ganged up on him there was a second trap, twenty years down the line when the agents of death would have shunted him, as they did his three sisters, into the gas chambers. That fate, though it was not to be his, is evident in his last photograph. It is a face that prefigures the concentration camp."

The third trap that might have caught Kafka (but never did) is the consequence of Bennett's playful imagining that the Czech writer first avoids TB and then escapes the Nazis by fleeing to America in 1938, only to die of asbestos poisoning which he had contracted in 1917 while managing his brother-in-law's factory. Although Bennett uses the same "trap" metaphor as RóÅ¼ewicz, it is unlikely that the British playwright could have known the Polish drama. And whereas Bennett has written "exterior" drama of a satirical nature about the reception, perception and consumption of Kafka as a cultural artifact in present-day Britain, RóÅ¼ewicz has placed Franz's ambiguous inner drama as son and artist in the context of the tragic historical catastrophe that engulfed his family, his culture, and his civilization.

The ultimate "trap" for RóÅ¼ewicz is Kafka himself, who, the Polish playwright avers, is a "black hole" in the European literary firmament capable of swallowing whatever is attracted to it. In The Trap Franz maintains that "Silence contains everything and is more important and vaster than speech and sound." For RóÅ¼ewicz , theatre has great possibilities; there is nothing it can not encompass. But speaking about silence has become such an impossible task that it has kept him from writing for the stage since 1981.

In 1991-ten years after the play was first published- RóÅ¼ewicz added a prologue to The Trap in the form of a poem, "Interrupted Conversation", which is an interior monologue by Franz during the last months or days of his life in a sanatorium near Vienna. Unable to speak, the dying writer communicates with the outside world on scraps of paper. His thoughts are disconnected but return persistently to his obsessions: the various women in his life, his complexes, problems with his Father, reflections on war and death. According to the poet, the prologue offers a summation of the play, with stress on its twin themes of suffering and silence. It is RóÅ¼ewicz’s farewell to Kafka.

Ambassador Theater presents the US Premiere of

THE TRAP

…Anxieties and nightmares of Franz Kafka…

By Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz

Translated by Adam Czerniawski

May 28 – June 21, 2015

XX Bldg. of the George Washington University

814 20 Street, NW, Washington DC

TICKETS ONLINE

Uncategorized

ON STAGE- The Trap

March 1, 2015 HannaB_home

In Partnership with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, Polish Cultural Institute in New York and Department of Theater & Dance at the George Washington University

Ambassador Theater presents US Premiere of

The Trap

…Anxities and nightmares of an artist, Franz Kafka…

by Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz

Translated by Adam Czerniawski

With Music by Jerzy Satanowski

…the most provocative and original playwright of the post-war period….enigmatic works that "sets up traps" for literal-minded critics, directors and audiences…

Produced and Directed by Hanna Bondarewska

Assistant Director Shawn W. Lyles

Set Design by Carl Gudenius

Multimedia Design by Riki Kim

Lighting Design by Michael Stepowany

Sound Design by Paul Oehlers

Costumes by Sigridur Johannesdottir

Stage Manager Yijin (Vanessa) Liu

Featuring:

Matthew Payne, Colin Davies, Benjamin Koonz, Morganne Davies *, Alexander Rolinski, Ariana Almajan, Melissa Robinson, Madeline Burrows, Emily Gilson, Abigail Ropp, John Brennan, Peter Orvetti, Marlove Vilchez, Ed Klein, and Tiffany Pindell

*Member of Actors Equity Association

May 28 – June 21, 2015

XX Bldg of the George Washington University, 814 20th Street, NW, Washington DC

Get your Tickets Online today!

CAST AND CREW

Hanna Bondarewska

Founder, CEO, and Artistic Director Hanna Bondarewska is the Artistic Director and Founder of the Ambassador Theater and was recently seen inÂ Lady, a one woman show based on Shakespeare'sÂ Macbeth and inÂ They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay!Â by Dario Fo as Antonia,Â SmartphonesÂ as Maria,Â Protest as Stankova,Â Death of Tintagiles as Ygraine and in Summer at Nohant as George Sand. â€œFor Hanna Bondarewska, the path to world peace not only exists, she is walking it â€” one artistic endeavor at a time.â€ â€“ The Washington Diplomat. Hanna Bondarewska is a native of Warsaw, Poland and was trained in the Polish and American schools of drama. She founded the Ambassador Theater because she believes in the power of theater to change the world for the better through collaboration and artistry. By bringing together theater and diplomacy she hopes to give us all a new perspective as global citizens, which will lead to deeper cultural understanding. In June 2008, Hanna organized a life-changing trip to Poland for students from D.C. Public Schools as part of an educational program about Poland. The program was done in collaboration with Mrs. Hanna Reiter, wife of the former Ambassador of Poland to USA, the Embassy of Poland, Embassy Adoption Program, D.C. Public Schools and WPAS. She worked with over 60 students, teaching them about Poland, its history, culture, and traditions through theater designed to help them better retain learnt material, improve their reading comprehension, posture, and speaking skills, increase their imagination, and energize their drive for life. The program developed into a performance, "Poland the Beautiful, an Imaginary ." Students performed the piece at their schools and at the Embassy of Poland, and then took it on the road for the First Lady of Poland, Mrs. Maria Kaczynska, at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw and in many other places around Poland last June. Hannaâ€™s acting credits are extensive and include the role of Antonia in They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay! by Dario Fo, George Sand in Summer at Nohant, Young Helena Modjeska in Farewell to Arden, Helenaâ€”the Emigrant Queen; Mother in Sunflowers, Wife in Square Minus One; A Genie Named Khatab; Snow Queen; Anouilhâ€™s Antigone; Gogolâ€™s The Marriage; and Goldoniâ€™s Mirandolina and many others. Ms. Bondarewska has recently directed Lady, The Trap, Happily Ever After, The Visitor,Â The Third Breast, The Madman and the Nun,Â Death of Tintagiles, Miracle of Saint Anthony, Summer at Nohant, Farewell to Arden, Forefathers, and Out at Sea. Her one-woman show, Lenya Cum Weill, won recognition at the Kennedy Center Performing Arts Festival. Hanna performed at the Washington Shakespeare Theatre, Spectrum Theatre, Classika-Synetic Theatre, The New York Polish Theater, Hippodrome State Theatre, and Acrosstown Theater in Florida, where she also directed The Tao of Pooh, based on the book by B. Hoffman, and S. MroÅ¼ekâ€™s Tango. Her Polish theater credits are extensive and include work in Warsaw, Bialystok, Olsztyn, Torun, Katowice, and Wroclaw with many luminaries of the Polish stage. Hanna received her Master of Fine Arts in Classical Acting at the Academy for Classical Acting at George Washington University and Shakespeare Theatre. She graduated magna cum laude from the Mount Vernon College of The George Washington University and also earned her Acting Diploma in Poland. For over 15 years she served as Executive Director of the Institute for Education and Membership Chairman of the ABC XXI Child Awareness Program for Poland, which supports the emotional health and rights of children and adolescents through reading programs, awareness, education, and action. Recently, her one-woman show of Lady was invited to perform at several international theater festivals around the world. Ms. Bondarewska has received various honors, including 2015 and 2014 DC Metro Theater Â ArtsÂ Best Director, Best Play Award,Â 2013 Helen Hayes Canadian Partnership Award, the St. Cyril and Methodius Award of excellence in promoting the Bulgarian Culture, Julia Heflin Performing Arts Award, recognition by Who's Who Among Students in American Universities, identification as a National Dean's List Scholar, and others.

Jerzy Satanowski

JERZYÂ SATANOWSKI (Composer) Born August 23, 1947 in Warsaw. Composer, arranger and director of musicalÂ performances. A graduate of Department of Polish Studies at Adam MickiewiczÂ University in Poznan. SelfeducatedÂ in music. A rock band vocalist and guitaristÂ during his high school years.Â Debuted as a theatrical composer in 1972 at the Boguslawski Theater in KaliszÂ with the music for â€œTrucizna, milosc i spiewâ€, based on texts by E. Stachura.Â Since then has composed music for over three hundred plays performed atÂ Polish and European theaters. CooperatedÂ with almost every theatre in Poland,Â including Polish TV, and wrote music for overseas productions in Vienna (Burg Theater), Zurich (Schauspielhaus), Helsinki (National Theater), LeningradÂ (Towstonogow Theater), Bonn, Geneva, Kassel, Graz, Dusseldorf, Wiesbaden,Â Krajina and Teheran. As a theatrical composer worked with the following artists, amongst others:Â Erwinem Akserem, Maciejem Prusem, IzabelÄ… CywiÅ„skÄ…, Janem Englertem,Â Maciejem Englertem, Adamem Hanuszkiewiczem, Gustawem Holoubkiem,Â Krzysztofem Zaleskim, AgnieszkÄ… Holland, Laco Adamikiem, TadeuszemÂ Åomnickim. Jerzy wrote music for all performances directed by Janusz Wisniewski who was theÂ recipient of the following awards: Grand Prix at BITEF Festival in Belgrade in 1983 for â€žPonopticum Ã la Madame Tissauâ€ and â€žKoniec Europyâ€Í¾ Grand Prixfor Panopticum Ã la Madame Tissau and Koniec Europy at Theatre of theÂ Nations Festival in Nancy in 1984Í¾ Fringe First for Koniec Europy in 1985 andÂ Fringe First for Modlitwy chorego przed nocÄ… in 1986 at Edinburgh TheatreÂ Festival. Jerzy Satanowski composed music for films, working with StanisÅ‚aw RÃ³Å¼ewicz, Filip Bajon,Â Marek Koterski, Andrzej Domalik, Janusz Zaorski, Robert GliÅ„ski, AndrzejÂ Kondratiuk, Januszem Kondratiuk, Maciej Wojtyszka, Jerzy Domaradzki. He directed over a dozen original musical performances: â€žDecadanseâ€, â€ž List doÂ PozostaÅ‚ychâ€, â€Wszystkie babskie Å›rodki przeciwko Å›mierciâ€, â€žMr Bâ€ at â€žTeatrzeÂ Nowymâ€ in PoznanÍ¾ â€žÅšpiewniczek upiornych kantyczekâ€, â€RodzinaÂ DreptakÃ³wâ€, â€žDomofonâ€ at â€žTeatr na Woliâ€ in WarsawÍ¾ â€žNie Å¼aÅ‚ujeâ€, â€žZanimÂ bÄ™dziesz u brzeguâ€ , â€žAntySzantyâ€, â€Stop Klatkaâ€ at â€žTeatr Atelierâ€ in Sopotâ€Í¾Â Ulica SzarlatanÃ³wâ€, Konie Narowisteâ€ at â€œSpiewajmy Poezjeâ€ (Lets SingÂ Poetry) at Olsztyn CastleÍ¾ â€ž Zabawki Pana Bogaâ€, â€žTuwimÂ dlaÂ dorosÅ‚ychâ€,Â CaÅ‚ujcie mnie wszyscy w odbiornikâ€ at â€œTeatr Romaâ€ in WarsawÍ¾ â€ž BiaÅ‚aÂ Lokomotywaâ€ at Teatr Ateneum in Warsaw. Composed music for the following vocalists: KrystynÄ™ JandÄ™, MarylÄ™Â Rodowicz, KatarzynÄ™ NosowskÄ…, EdytÄ™ Geppert, MagdÄ™ Umer, StanisÅ‚awÄ™Â CeliÅ„skÄ…, JustynÄ™ SteczkowskÄ…, Ewe BÅ‚aszczyk, EdytÄ™ JungowskÄ…, HannÄ™ ÅšleszyÅ„ska, AnnÄ™ DereszowskÄ…, KatarzynÄ™ Groniec, HannÄ™ Banaszak,Â KrystynÄ™ Tkacz,Piotra Fronczewskiego, Ryszarda Rynkowskiego, MirosÅ‚awaÂ CzyÅ¼ykiewicza, Zbigniewa Zamachowskiego, Mariana Opanie, Jana Peszka,Â MichaÅ‚a Bajora, MirosÅ‚awa BakÄ™, Piotra MachalicÄ™. He received music awards for the following: â€žNoc listopadowaâ€ Theater FestivalÂ in Opole 1979Í¾ â€žOperetkaâ€ in WrocÅ‚aw 1980Í¾ â€žJudasz z Kariothuâ€ Theater Festival in Kaliszu 1981 and in Opole 1982Í¾ â€žWeseleâ€, â€žDziadyâ€ and â€žNieBoskaÂ komediaâ€ Theater Festivals in Opole between 198283Í¾Â for musical "MiÅ‚oÅ›Ä‡, czyli Å¼ycie, Å›mierÄ‡ i zmartwychwstanieâ€ Theater Festival in WrocÅ‚aw 1985Í¾ Grand Prix at the Opole Song Contest in 1986 for â€žTo nic, Å¼e to senâ€Í¾Â forâ€Skarpetki opus 116â€ at Festival of Two Theaters in Sopot.Â Awarded for film soundtracks to â€žSchodami w gÃ³rÄ™, schodami w dÃ³Å‚â€ andÂ â€žWrzeciono czasuâ€ at Film Festival in GdaÅ„skÍ¾ nominated for â€œPolskie Orlyâ€ forÂ â€žDzien Åšwiraâ€. Other awards: Director of Radio and TV Board Award, 1980Í¾ The Order ofÂ Polonia Restituta KrzyÅ¼Â Kawalerski Orderu Odrodzenia Polski and SilverÂ Medal of Merit for the Polish Culture ZasÅ‚uÅ¼onyÂ Kulturze Gloria Artis. Currently, Jerzy Satanowski holds a position of an artistic supervisor at theÂ Roma Musical Theater in Warsaw and is an Artistic Director of theÂ â€œPamietajmy o Osieckiejâ€ (Lets Remember Osiecka) Song Contest.

Shawn W. Lyles

Shawn W. Lyles (Assistant Artistic Director) is a graduate of Boston University's Center for Digital Imaging Arts. With a concentration in Cinematography and Editing, he completed his Digital Filmmaking professional program at the Washington, DC Campus."What does this have to do with theater?" you may ask. Filmmaking was the bridge that connected Shawn to Hanna and the Ambassador Theater. Upon hearing about the work of the theater and the production of 'Rage', Shawn's contribution came in the form of a trailer for the play, as well as a feature segment with the director Joe Banno.This led to ideas of a more day to day involvement with the theater, but his association with drama didn't start there.
Shawn, a native of Rochester, NY, theater background began at Syracuse University where he studied under Arthur Storch and performed (as Chino) in Syracuse Stage's production of West Side Story. Having caught the acting bug, Shawn set his sites for the regional houses in the area and was cast In Geva Theatre's A Raisin in the Sun (George Murchison) and The Member of the Wedding (Honey Camden Brown).
At the urging of his director Woodie King Jr., Shawn made the move to NYC and split time between theatre work (which included an East Coast tour with The Shoestring Players), daytime television (ABC's 'One Life to Live') and a Manhattan based cable-access music show called 'Make It or Break It' where he worked as the videographer-on-the-street.
After developing an appreciation for creating and producing segments, and learning the realities of 'run and gun' filming, Shawn broadened his skill set, and while employed as a Video Editing Specialist at Sachs Insights, he honed his video story telling working with focus groups and research projects.
He also was able to transition into directing theater by founding the 'Black Expressions Theater Group' where he co-produced and directed "I See Rivers" and "Denmark Vesey Revolts" at Geva Theatre and The Village Gate Theater.
A move to Washington, DC translated into a variety of new experiences including the opportunity to act once again in "A Mid-Summer Nights Dream" & "Much Ado About Nothing" with The Shakespeare Theater Company and the founding of B-Roll Film Productions where he produced and directed a promotional video for the non-profit organization 'Bread for the City', produced a recruitment video for the national for-purpose 501(c)3 organization 'Back on My Feet', and served as Co-Producer/Editor on the 'One World Education 2014 Student Ambassadors' video. He also served as videographer for 13-time Emmy Award winner Elisabeth Leamy's keynote speech to 2014 Association Media and Publishing and produced a mini-documentary on Washington, DC native, musician, David Marsh. Shawn would like to thank Hanna for her ongoing mission of bringing diversity and cultural awareness in the arts to the community, and for the opportunity to contribute to the Ambassador Theater.

Carl Gudenius

Carl Gudenius-Scenic Designer:
This is Carlâ€™s first design for Ambassador Theatre. He has been designing scenery for theater, corporate and special events since 1976 and has also been working as an art director and production designer for television since 1989. Recent design work has included Spirit of America (2001-2005), WWII Tribute to a Generation, 50th Anniversary of the Korean War, and the Army Band Holiday Concert for the US Army, POTUS Diplomatic Podium and Graphic Support for the office of the president As well as Art Direction for The Democratic Candidate Debates, The Reagan State Funeral, Nightline and Good Morning America for ABC News. His scenic designs for theater have been seen at many theaters ranging from local, regional and national tours. His Television credits include work for ABC, ESPN, CNN, PBS (including 8 years of In Performance at the White House), and C-SPAN networks as well as many local, national and international broadcasts. His corporate design work has covered hundreds of shows and events for such clients as Terminix, Accenture, Pfizer, Sony, HP, MasterCard, Choice Hotels and Barnes & Noble. He is resident designer and board member for The Washington Stage Guild. In addition to his professional activities he is professor of design for the department of Theater & Dance at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Riki Kim

Riki K. (Digital Scenography) is a multimedia designer specializing in digital media integration into various environment. She earned her B.F.A. at The Academy of Art University (San Francisco) and studied at Oxford University, before earning her M.F.A. at University of London (United Kingdom). Her work for the DC and Baltimore theaters has been critically acclaimed by critics including The Washington Post. Her work was nominated for a 2015 Helen Hayes."

Paul A. Oehlers

Paul A. Oehlers is most recognized for his “extraordinarily evocative” film scores. (Variety) Films incorporating his music have screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, the Indiefest Film Festival of Chicago, and the Hamptons International Film Festival, where the film Paul scored, Most High, captured the Golden Starfish, the largest independent film award in the United States. The film has gone on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Atlanta International Film Festival and the Prism Award for Outstanding DVD of the Year. Paul A. Oehlers’ compositions have been performed in the United States and abroad including performances at the Society for Electro-acoustic Music in the United States national conferences, the International Computer Music Conferences, the Gamper New Music Festival, the Seoul International Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Institut für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung in Darmstadt, Germany, and the VII Annual Brazilian Electronic Music Festival, as well as a 1987 command performance for former United States President Ronald Reagan. Paul was named the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow by the MacDowell Colony for the year 2006. He is currently Program Coordinator and Assistant Professor of Audio Technology at American University in Washington, DC.

Michael C. Stepowany

Michael C. Stepowany, Lighting Design. Michaelâ€™s lighting design has been seen in St Petersburg, Russia, Tromso, Norway, and Vienna Austria. He recent lighting designs include Jitney for the St. Louis Black Rep, Zenon Dance Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the National tour of Forever Swing. Mr. Stepowany is the Set Designer and Technical Director for Howard Universityâ€™s Department of Theater Arts. Michael is a graduate of NYU School of the Arts.

Kathy Gordon

Kathy Gordon (Choreographer) is thrilled to be working on her first show with Ambassador Theater.
Kathy is a Company Member with Synetic Theater and has performed in many of their productions over the past 5 years, her favorite shows include Twelfth Night (HH Best Ensemble winner 2015) The Island of Dr Moreau, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Much Ado About Nothing. Kathy is also Co Producer of Dark Night Showcase which is an annual one night event hosted at the Synetic Theater to showcase original work by Synetic Company Members.
Kathy has performed in many productions in DC and across the US as wells as England, France, Germany, Mexico and around the world performing on Cruise Ships.
Kathy has shown her original Choreography in both London and Oxford in England, in DC and in NYC and last year founded K.G.Dance a fledgling Contemporary Dance Company based here in DC.
Thank you Irina and Hanna for this opportunity and Robbie for his love.

Polish Cultural Institute New York

The Polish Cultural Institute New York, established in 2000, is a diplomatic mission to the United States serving under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland. The PCI is one of 24 such institutes around the world. It is also an active member of the network of the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) in its New York cluster.

The Instituteâ€™s mission is to build, nurture, and promote cultural exchange between the United States and Poland by presenting Polish culture to American audiences and by connecting Polish artists, researchers and scholars from various fields to American institutions, introducing them to their professional counterparts in the United States, and facilitating their participation in contemporary American culture.

The Institute produces and promotes a broad range of cultural events in theater, performance, dance, music, film, visual arts, literature, and the humanities. Among its past and present American partners are such distinguished organizations as Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, PEN American Center, the Poetry Society of America, YIVO, the National Gallery of Art, Yale University, 92nd Street Y, Columbia University, St. Annâ€™s Warehouse, Princeton University, the Harvard Film Archive, the CUNY Graduate Center, the Julliard School of Music, Film Forum, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Morgan Library & Museum, Anthology Film Archives, The Santa Fe Opera, the New Museum, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Symphony Space, the New York Public Library, the Cinefamily, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Kennedy Center, and many more.

Our programs have included American presentations of works by such a wide range of distinguished artists, including filmmakers Agnieszka Holland, Roman Polanski, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, Jerzy Skolimowski, Malgorzata Szumowska and Andrzej Zulawski; poets and authors Wislawa Szymborska, Czeslaw Milosz, Adam Zagajewski, Zbigniew Herbert, Tadeusz RÃ³zewicz, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Stanislaw Lem, Witold Gombrowicz and Bruno Schulz; composers Karol Szymanowski, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Andrzej Panufnik, Witold Lutoslawski, Mikolaj GÃ³recki, Krzysztof Penderecki, Pawel Mykietyn and Fryderyk Chopin; theater directors Tadeusz Kantor, Jerzy Grotowski, Krystian Lupa, Grzegorz Jarzyna and Krzysztof Warlikowski; visual artists Alina Szapocznikow, Miroslaw Balka, Katarzyna Kozyra, Pawel Althamer, Edward Krasinski, Zofia Kulik, JÃ³zef Robakowski, Zbigniew Libera, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Magdalena Abakanowicz; and many other Polish researchers and scholars, public intellectuals, and social and cultural activists.

Staff:

Bartek Remisko â€“ Acting Director

Bartek Remisko has been Deputy Director of the Institute since September 2011 and its Acting Director since August 2014.

Mr. Remisko has worked in the cultural sector and arts administration for over ten years. His interests lie particularly in Visual Arts and Polish-Jewish relations. He also has extensive experience in corporate social responsibility, diversity management and in public affairs and relations.

After interning at the Polish permanent missions to UNESCO in Paris and the United Nations in New York, Mr. Remisko worked at the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Education and Culture Directorate of the European Commission, and the European Parliamentâ€™s Committee on Culture, both in Brussels. He also served as an Expert in Corporate Social Responsibility and Diversity Management for the TP-Orange Group in Warsaw, the largest communications company in Central and Eastern Europe and part of the worldwide France Telecom-Orange Group. There he also collaborated on cultural and educational programming with its corporate charity, the Orange Poland Foundation, and the global Orange Foundation headquarters in Paris. He is a member of the Civic Forum on Contemporary Art in Poland and serves on the Audit Committee of the Responsible Business Forum in Warsaw.

Mr. Remisko has degrees in the humanities as well as arts and cultural administration from Warsaw University, the Warsaw School of Economics, Institut dâ€™Etudes Politiques Sciences-Po Paris, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and Universite ParisVIII. He is currently enrolled in the Arts Administration program at the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

Anna Perzanowska â€“ Music Programming

Anna Perzanowska has been Music Programmer at the Institute since January 2007.

Anna Perzanowska is currently pursuing her Masterâ€™s Degree in ethnomusicology at the City University of New York at Hunter College. Music has been her passion since her very early years; she began her music education at the age of five at the Fryderyk Chopin Elementary Music School in Warsaw. After immigrating to New York at the age of 14, she continued her studies at the LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts. Upon attending music classes at Hunter College, Anna graduated from Baruch College with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing in 2003. In order to combine her interests, Anna worked with numerous New York institutions and musicians in preparation of concerts and various cultural events.

Sean Bye - Humanities Programming

Sean Bye has been Humanities Programmer at the Institute since February 2014.

Sean is a literary translator, actor and theater director. His translations of Polish fiction, drama and reportage have been published in magazines and journals such as Words Without Borders, Continents, and In Other Words, and his essays and commentary on literary translation have appeared in The Mantle, Translation Ireland and others. He is an artistic director of the London-based radio theater company Invisible Theater, for which he regularly acts, produces and translates.

Sean studied Polish, French, and German at University College London from 2005-2009, and received a Master's International Studies and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies in 2010. He won a competitive space on the 2013 British Centre for Literary Translation mentorship program and spent six months working with the award-winning Polish literary translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones. A native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Sean was based primarily in London from 2005 to 2014 before moving to New York to join the PCI.

Marzena Dawidziuk â€“ Film & Performing Arts Programmer

Marzena Dawidziuk has been Project Coordinator since October 2012, having previously worked as Assistant to the Director of the Institute.

She earned a Masterâ€™s Degree in American Studies from Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin. A foreign languages enthusiast, she worked as a Polish/English business and legal translator for several years before joining the Polish Cultural Institute. Upon immigrating to New York in 2008, she has continued her education at NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies, where she completed her Certificate in Global Affairs.

Magdalena Mazurek-Nuovo - Communications Officer

Magdalena Mazurek-Nuovo has been Communications Expert at the Institute since April 2014.

She holds an M.A. in Polish Philology from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, and has completed a postgraduate program in teaching Polish as a foreign language at Marie Sklodowska-Curie University. For seven years she worked for the Kosciuszko Foundation. As the Director of Cultural Affairs she organized and ran a number of successful events and programs promoting Polish culture in US. She has extensive knowledge of Polish cultural and historical organizations, and successfully organized and ran the Jan Karski Educational Foundationâ€™s fundraisers in Nov. 2013, and Nov. 2014. She is continuing her education at NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

Agnieszka Stypulkowska - Assistant to the PCINY team

Agnieszka Stypulkowska has been assistant to the PCINY team since June 2015. She has a degree in Cultural Anthropology, with a minor in Art History, from Brooklyn College, as well as a degree in Management from Academy of Tourism and Hotel Management in Gdansk, Poland. She has been working in the administrative field for nearly 10 years. She has also worked as a journalist covering visual art and theater. She studied screenwriting at the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies, completed a certificate in film editing at Future Media Concepts in New York and earned a certificate in filmmaking at the L.V. Prasad Film and TV Academy in India. She is currently studying French at the French Institute and working toward her masterâ€™s degree in Art History. She has long had an interest in exploring other cultures through visual art and theater.

Eliza Anna Falk

Eliza Anna Falk ( Literary Director) joined the Ambassador Theatre in early 2013 as a Creative and Editorial Consultant, in time to contribute to the success of the Literary Café event at the Embassy of Austria. Soon after she assumed the role of a Literary Associate Director and provides literary support to the theater’s productions, working with the Artistic Director on research and plays’ development. Her contributions include essays and articles; press releases, play bills and programs, aticc.org blog entries, as well as editorial work and occasional translations i.e. poems by Ireneusz Iredynski. Eliza’s passion for theatre and writing is also being realized through her work as a writer/reviewer for DC Metro Theatre Arts, covering plays, musicals and concerts. Graduate of Warsaw and Sydney Universities, she holds a Bachelor of Social Work and Policy and an M.A. in British Film and TV. She is also a CELTA (Cambridge) qualified teacher of English. Her past employment encompasses work for the Australian federal government, including diplomatic postings to Moscow and Warsaw, teaching English, and interior design and styling projects. Eliza is an avid theatre and film goer and lover of arts and travel. Past resident of Warsaw, London, Moscow, Paris and Sydney, she is thrilled to be able to experience life in cosmopolitan DC and collaborate with its vibrant theatre scene.

Ariana Almajan

Ariana Almajan is excited to reteam with Joe Banno and Ambassador Theater after last fall'sRage! Recently she was seen in "The Trap" as Josie and Grete. DC-area: Student Playwrights Project (Arena Stage), We Are Not Animals (Source Festival),Faceless (Active Cultures Theater), Whenever You're Near Me (I Feel Sick) (Women's Voices Theater Festival), The Trap (Ambassador Theater), Out of Silence (Advocates for Youth/Capital Fringe Festival), and Stone Tape Party (Nu Sass, winner Best Comedy and Best Overall at the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival). TV/Film: America's Most Wanted (Fox), Deadly Affairs (Discovery ID), DC 48-Hour Film Festivals, various local and regional commercials and independent films. She works frequently with Young Playwrights Theater both in schools and on stage with their New Play Festival and New Writers Now Young at Heart. You can see her online in the comedy webseries The ABC's of Online Dating, the fantasy The Broken Continent, and the upcoming comedy Quiet!

SigrÃÃ°ur JÃ³hannesdÃ³ttir (Costume Designer)

Sigríður or Sigrid as she is called here in the United States is a native of Iceland.
She came to the United States 1988 to pursue her Masters of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Design after having taught Icelandic and History at Fjölbrautaskóli Suðurnesja, (college) in Keflavik, Iceland for several years.
One year after her graduation 1992, she started her own decorative arts company; Scene Studios, Inc., www.scenestudios.com as well as Dedua, www.dedua.com, a business focusing on fashion accessories. She still runs both companies in Alexandria, Virginia.
Through the years she has designed costumes for various theatrical productions in Washington D.C. as well as worked for the Washington Opera. She is the resident costume designer for The Washington Stage Guild and The Ambassador Theatre in DC. She has taught theatrical design at American University in Washington DC, and in Morgantown, West Virginia. Presently she is in her fourth year of serving as a costume design professor at George Washington University.

Matthew Lindasy Payne

Matthew most recently finished playing Marcel in â€œThirteen Dead Husbandsâ€ (Cohesion Theater Company), for which he received The Bad Oracleâ€™s March 2015 â€œActor Stealing the Spotlight.â€ Previous credits also include Sebastian in Milburn Stone Theatre's "Twelfth Night," James in Single Carrot's "The Pairing Formerly Known As Friends," and Pozzo in Loyola University Maryland's "Waiting for Godot." Matthew is an avid stage combat enthusiast training under Lewis Shaw, and a student of "Kunst des Fechtens," training under Vince Hann.

Colin Davies

Colin Davies was recently seen in the title role of Galileoâ€™s Torch (performed in the open air in Rappahannock County and at the Italian Embassy), and was the lead in Death by Design (Greenbelt Arts Center). He has taken part in several Scena Theater productions, including The Marriage of Maria Braun, some Actors Center readings, several British Players productions, and was in Marathon â€™33 (American Century Theater) and Heaven Can Wait (Little Theatre of Alexandria). He has been in episodes of VEEP , House of Cards and Deadly Affairs, and played Neville Chamberlainâ€™s Secretary in the History Channel miniseries The Wars. He is a rockâ€™nâ€™roll DJ, who MCed a recent Buddy Holly tribute and whose weekly radio show can be heard on Radio Fairfax and on www.theprofessorrocks.com

Benjamin Koontz

Benjamin Koontz: Ben holds a BFA in Theatrical Performance from West Virginia University. As a trained actor, Ben has starred in numerous professional Summer Stock and Regional companies. Ben has appeared across Pennsylvania and West Virginia in such theatrical roles as Benny Southstreet (Guys and Dolls), Connie (The Grapes of Wrath), Claudio (Measure for Measure), Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing), Jim/Tom/Kenneth (Clybourne Park), Pippin (Pippin), Prince Dauntless (Once Upon a Mattress), John (Monongah Mining Disaster) and Barker(Poe). Alongside his theatrical roles, Ben has portrayed a wide variety of characters in numerous films and television productions such as Ben Hoffman (Spirit World), Sider (You Became I), and Holloway (The Men Who Built America). Aside from his professional acting career, Ben has demonstrated talents in Scenic Design and Props Construction with many professional companies. Some of his favorite Scenic and Props designs include Coriolanus, Extremities and The Dresser. Ben has also served two years as Props Master for Gamut Theater Company in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Morganne Davies

Morganne Davies (Felice) is thrilled to be making her Ambassador Theater debut! She has performed leading and featured roles in the DC area, New York and at theaters around the country. Favorite roles include: Vanessa in Giant Box of Porn (Field Trip Theater), Princess in Love's Labors Lost, Eunice in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Kitty Verdun in Charley's Aunt (Clarence Brown Theater), Rosalind in As You Like It (Southwest Shakespeare Festival), and Woman 1 in Becket's Play (Chocolate Factory). In addition, Ms. Davies has worked on several independent films in the area several of which have won awards at the DC Shorts and 48 Hour Film Festivals. When she is not on-stage, Ms. Davies runs the drama program at JEB Stuart High School. She has a BA in Theatre from Fordham University, and an MFA in Acting from the University of Tennessee. She is currently pursuing her graduate certificate in Theater Education at George Mason University. Ms. Davies is a proud member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association, Association for Theater in Higher Education, Educational Theatre Association, and Actor's Equity. For more information and updates visit her website www.morgannedavies.com.

Alexander Rolinski

Alexander Rolinski Biography

Film/Television: Less Of You; Mother; We Kid; The Good Wife (CBS); FOREVER (ABC); Louie (FX); Panic 9-1-1 (A&E). Theater Includes: Dear Edwina; Children of Eden; A Lot of Tall Tales; Everybodyâ€™s Garden. Training: Acting Coach Lilia Slavova (DC) and Penny Templeton (NYC)

Alexander is thrilled to be collaborating with Artistic Director Hanna Bondarewska. Website: www.AlexanderRolinski.com
Facebook: Alexander Rolinski

Melissa Robinson

Melissa B. Robinson (Mother), a Washington, D.C.-based actor, journalist and author, is pleased to make her Ambassador debut with The Trap. Melissa is a 2015 teaching-artist with Shakespeare, Alive!, a professional company that brings performances and on-your-feet actor-oriented activities to Maryland schools. Locally, she has appeared on stage with WSC Avant Bard, Pallas Theatre Collective, force/collision, Rainbow Theatre Project and Forum Theatre (2012 Over The Line festival), among others. Earlier this year, Melissa earned raves for her turn as Silda Grauman in Other Desert Cities at the Highwood Theatre. Film & TV credits include a supporting role in the thriller Deviance, out later this year. Melissa has trained at The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory and studies jazz and modern dance. A professional journalist, she spent a decade with the AP and is the author of The Search for Canasta 404 (UPNE, 2006), a nonfiction narrative book about a missing Vietnam-era Navy pilot. Melissa’s recent work as a travel writer and photographer can be found at Lost in Australia. Thanks to Hanna, cast & crew!

Madeline Burrows

Madeline Burrows is an actor, writer, musician and recent Washington, D.C. transplant from Boston. She is the creator and performer of the critically-acclaimed nationally-touring solo show, MOM BABY GOD, a darkly comedic exploration of youth sexual culture in the American anti-abortion movement. Madeline holds a B.A. in Theatre and Women & Gender studies from Hampshire College and has trained at Shakespeare & Company and with the Tectonic Theatre Project. Madeline is thrilled to make her Washington, D.C. stage debut with the Ambassador Theater. She can be seen this summer in The Wedding Party, which premieres at the 2015 Capital Fringe Festival.

Emily H. Gilson

Emily H Gilson is a DC native who moved back to the city after her graduation from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at SUNY Purchase in 2012 with a double BA in Drama Studies and Medieval History, and she’s so excited to be making her debut with Ambassador Theater! Her previous DC area credits include Tyger (banished? productions workshop, 2014); Dark House (Capital Fringe); a 2011 workshop reading of Ari Roth’s Born Guilty Cycle, under the helm of Mr. Roth and the Theatre Lab; and Iolanthe (Washington Savoyards). Most recently, she was seen in Blind Pug Arts Collective’s Shakespeare in Brookland, an evening of short plays by local playwrights presented as part of opening events for DC’s new Brookland Arts Walk in October 2014. Children’s theatre: Alice in Wonderland (Pandemonium Theatrical Productions); Maryland, My Maryland (Children’s Theatre Association, local tour). TV: Evil Twins; Southern Fried Homicide (Investigation Discovery). Emily is also a company member and Victorian Christmas caroler with 42nd St Singers, a costumed a capella caroling group comprised of local musical theatre and opera talent. Upon her return to DC, she began study with the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory, and is a 2012 alumna of Signature Theatre’s 2-week Overtures musical theatre intensive in Arlington, VA. More information including a demo reel and links to additional work can be found online at www.emilygilsonactor.com.

Abigail Ropp

Originally hailing from Traverse City, Michigan, Abigail Ropp is a graduate of Northern Michigan University with degrees in English and Theatre. Abigail has been performing since her fifth grade big break as a unicorn in the school play, "King Midas and the Palace of Gold." Abigail is an award-winning dramaturg as well and has dramaturged for school groups as well as at the Kennedy Center. She is fascinated with World War II and Polish history and literature, so "The Trap" is a perfect production for her to be a part of. A recent DC transplant, Abigail has fallen in love with the theatre community here and hopes to keep meeting and working with the phenomenal talent in the region.

John Brennan

JOHN BRENNAN, a Huntington, New York native and graduate of Stony Brook University (B.A., Theatre), is appearing in his first production with Ambassador Theater, and working on his second production of a play by Tadeusz RÃ³Å¼ewicz. His various credits include: LOCAL â€” 3 By Samuel Beckett (Henry in Embers), Arcturus Theater [also recorded and broadcast on Radio Fairfax]; American Buffalo (Donnie Dubrow), Studio Theatre; The Receptionist (Mr. Raymond), Studio Theatre 2nd Stage; Julius Caesar (Popilius Lena/Ensemble), The Shakespeare Theatre Company; Scenes From The Big Picture (Shanks O'Neill) (Helen Hayes Nomination, Best Ensemble), Solas Nua; Kit Marlowe (Sir Francis Walsingham), Rorschach Theatre. REGIONAL â€” Glengarry, Glenross (Richard Roma), Wilmington (DE) Drama League; BiaÅ‚e maÅ‚Å¼eÅ„stwo [White Marriage] (Benjamin), Slavic Cultural Center; Twelfth Night (Valentine/Ensemble), PAF Playhouse; Hamlet (Hamlet), Arena Players Repertory. NEW YORK â€” Macbeth (Banquo), 13th Street Theatre; Don Juan (Don Carlos), New York Theatre Ensemble; A Dollâ€™s House (Torvold), Troupe Theatre. TELEVISION â€” The Wire, HBO; Veep, HBO; House of Cards, Netflix; Americaâ€™s Most Wanted, FOX; Rescue Me, FX. John currently lives in Lorton, Virginia, and is delighted to be working with his very talented colleagues.

Peter Orvetti

Peter Orvetti has been acting in the Washington area for the past three years. His most recent major role was in the Capital Fringe Festival hit production "Districtland". He has also appeared in two productions with Arcturus Theater Company, "3 by Samuel Beckett" and "Full Bloom". Peter has worked with Elden Street Players, SCENA, Silver Spring Stage, and Spooky Action Theater, among others. He is a member of the improv troupe Imaginary Numbers and is currently filming the web series "The B League".

Marlowe Vilchez

Marlowe Vilchez is originally from Silver Spring, Maryland. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College Magna Cum Laude in May 2012 with Bachelors of Arts in Psychology and Fine Arts, with a concentration in Theatre. After graduation, he moved to DC to pursue his career as an actor. Last year, he appeared as George Spelvin in The Chevy Chase Players’ production of The Actor’s Nightmare. He also ranked among the top 16 actors in Monologue Madness 2014. He performed in Writing Miss’ Clark’s Resume and Macbeth: Instruments of Darkness as Cesar and Banquo, respectively, at the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival. Most recently, he appeared as Raymond Stitt/ Rage in Ambassador Theater's production of Rage. Marlowe credits all of his success to the two people that raised him Kasandra and Lesby Vilchez.

Ed Klein

Ed Klein (Gentleman and Salesman). Ed is an actor working in the Washington Baltimore area. His recent credits include Will in â€œLook homeward Angelâ€ (Compass Rose) The Homeless Guy in Tent of Dreams, an Occuplay (Capital Fringe Festival), Tesla, in Tesla (McClain Players 10 minute Play Festival), Mr. Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol (Howard Community College Arts Festival) and Adolph, in Last Night of Ballyhoo (Jewish Theatre Workshop).

Tiffany Pindell

Tiffany Pindell is the youngest performer and this is her debut with the Ambassador Theater as Cobbler's daughter. She has performed with Musical arts Theater and Children's Theater Productions and also danced with the academy Ballet. She has been trained in Musical Art Theater, Children's Theater and Academy Ballet.

Zofia Gorka

Literary Associate

Classical philologist, interpreter, PhD student of the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” at the University of Warsaw. Currently works at the Theatre Institute (Instytut Teatralny) in Warsaw, teaches Italian and tries to find time to work on her PhD dissertation that focuses on the phenomenon of the holy foolery in films by Andrei Tarkovsky. Her hobbies include art-house films, interpreting and participating in marathon races all over the world.

John Traub

John is the Technical Director and Assistant Professor of Production Management & Technology for the George Washington University, Department of Theatre & Dance. Prior to GW he taught at Boston University, where he studied in the Masters program and served as the Scene Shop Manager, assisting with both managing the Technical Production Department and teaching numerous courses in Production, advanced wood and metal working. Technical Director: Maine State Music Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Boston University, Olney Theatre Center for the Arts, Catalyst Theatre, New Mexico Ballet. Production Manager: Boston Midsummer Opera, Alan Levanthal Productions. Carpenter: Huntington Theatre Company, Actorsâ€™ Shakespeare Project, Boston Opera, New Repertory Theatre, IATSE Local 62. His design work has been seen in New York City, Boston, D.C. and throughout the country. BA, Colorado College; MFA, Boston University.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz

The Polish poet, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, satirist and translator of Hungarian poetry. One of the most versatile and creative continuators of the Polish and international avant – garde. Member of the Polish Writers' Association. Often mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz died on April 24, 2014.

Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz was born September 9, 1921 in Radomsko. His father, WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw, was a junior court clerk and his mother Stefania Maria, of the house Gelbard, was a housewife. Tadeusz had two brothers, the elder Janusz and the younger StanisÅ‚aw. Although RóÅ¼ewicz received an equivalent of GCSE in the Felix Fabiani school, his further education was stopped by the outbreak of World War II.

The War, the Forest and the Pen

In 1939 RóÅ¼ewicz began working as an errand-boy, a warehouseman, and apprentice carpenter in the Bent-wood Furniture Factory – Thonet to help support his family. It was at this time that Janusz RóÅ¼ewicz, the first literary mentor to his brother, introduced him to the Polish literary underground. After a six-month training in an underground Officer Cadet School, Tadeusz was sworn into the Home Army (codename “Satyr”) to fight as part of the guerrilla troops from June 26, 1943 to November 3, 1944.

During this time he wrote poems and edited the newspaper Czyn Zbrojny (Armed Action). He published the tome Forest Echoes, which contained poems, epigrams, humoresques and patriotic, poetic prose together with Janusz in 1944. In these first pieces of RóÅ¼ewicz we can observe a passion for the works of Juliusza SÅ‚owacki and Stefan Å»eromski, as well as a spiritual dilemma akin to his contemporaries such as Krzysztof Kamil BaczyÅ„ski and Tadeusz Gajcy, particularly as they relate to the circumstances of war.

In 1943 Janusz RóÅ¼ewicz wrote to his brother, “You'll write better than me, you'll be a better poet…” In July that year he was arrested by the Germans and was shot and executed on August 3, 1944.

Tadeusz revealed himself to the Liquidation Committee in 1945, received the Polish Army Medal in 1948 and the London Home Army Medal in 1974.

A New Shape of Poetry

Julian PrzyboÅ›, whom the poet had met in the editorial office of Odrodzenie (The Rebirth), brought RóÅ¼ewicz from CzÄ™stochowa, where he had passed his baccalaureate exams, to Kraków. Here Tadeusz began studying History of Art at the Jagiellonian University but never finished. He became involved with the neoavangardist Grupa Krakowska, whose members include Tadeusz Kantor,Jerzy Nowosielski, Kazimierz Mikulski, Andrzej Wróblewski and Andrzej Wajda.

RóÅ¼ewicz gave a new shape to poetry by rebuilding a sense of meaning in life after the tragedy of Auschwitz — a trauma after which, according to Theodor Adorno, nothing authentic could be created anymore. The author has been accused of nihilism and a vulnerability to Western influence (namely Eliot, Pound and Russell) for his expressionistic and catastrophic poetry style, but nevertheless his poetry books Niepokój (Anxiety) (1947) and Czerwona rÄ™kawiczka (The Red Glove) (1948) have been considered revolutionary. CzesÅ‚aw MiÅ‚osz responded to them in one of his tomes, Ocalenie (Salvation).

RóÅ¼ewicz fled to escape the communist regime 1950, the same year his friend Tadeusz Borowski went to Berlin. There he again became fascinated with the universality and the “greyness” of human existence in line with the philosophical ideology of Eyelash by Leopold Staff.

After a year in Hungary, RóÅ¼ewicz came back to Poland and settled in Gliwice with his wife WiesÅ‚awa. The couple had two sons, the elder Kamil in 1950 and the younger Jan in 1953. They lived in poverty away from the literary turmoil. In the book Czas, który idzie (Time to Come) he made ironic remarks about the superimposed order: “Communism will elevate people/ wash off the time of scorn,” as he came to know the bitter taste of the literary milieu's “battue.”

The political thaw after the death of Stalin and the events of 1956 opened Poland to the West. Fascinated by the works of the Paris avant-garde, particularly Beckett and Ionesco, he wrote the drama Kartoteka (The Card Index), his most revolutionary work and contribution to the theater of the absurd. More abstract, neobaroque and formist trials can be found in the poem Zielona róÅ¼a(The Green Rose) and the tome Nic w pÅ‚aszczu Prospera (Nothing Dressed in Prospero's Cloak), parallel with MiÅ‚osz's That.

RóÅ¼ewicz's stylistic invention of file-like text compilation and editing, as observed in the textPrzygotowania wieczoru autorskiego (Preparations to an Authors Soiree), provoked PrzyboÅ› in 1967 to viciously attack RóÅ¼ewicz for “trashy, pop-art ideas.” In 1968 the poet moved to WrocÅ‚aw.

RóÅ¼ewicz’s works have been translated into 49 languages. In 2000 he received the Nike Litarary Award for Matka odchodzi (Mother Departs), a book of poetry containing the author's intimate confessions in the form of poems, notes from the Gliwice Journal and selections from the memoirs of his mother Stefania and his brother StanisÅ‚aw. The text documents are supplemented by family photographs and fragments of written correspondence, including Stefania Mria RóÅ¼ewicz’s letter to Tadeusz from a time shortly before Christmas 1943. A calendar page from 1957 notes on July 16, “Mom died today at 10:20 A.M.” In such moments words evidently reveal their imperfection, even those of a poet even as great as RóÅ¼ewicz.

Congeniality Effect

In his contemporary poetry the author expresses the unrests and embitterments of a generation defined by wartime. In line with his experiences in the Home Army, RóÅ¼ewicz shows a world of relative values with man objectified and dominated by biology or technology. The I-speaker in his poems is a disintegrated personality, devoid of self and lost in a world of collapsing form.

His poems reveal him as a skeptic defiant to the world order rather than one of despair. Piotr Lachmann remarked that RóÅ¼ewicz’s poetry achieved a congeniality effect (as opposed to Brecht's alienation effect). Before Lachman's cameras RóÅ¼ewicz stated his “Discourse about the Void”:

…The Void rages. Completeness doesn't have to. The void has to make itself visible. The void in which biology struggles. The devil is also a void – its strength lies in the fact that you cannot grasp it, it doesn't have a form. And this void is growing. And what happens in it: the most complicated weaponry as yet unseen by any man. Biologically (…) Syphilis or cancer do not threaten or scare us as much as AIDS. Committees gather to recommend the use of condoms, which in turn are forbidden by the Holy Congregation. All this beguiles our life.

RóÅ¼ewicz saw the film during a multimedia evening prepared by Jolanta Lothe and Piotr Lachmann in the Videotheatre Poza in 2003. He read poems from his Szara strefa (The Grey Zone), trying to convince the audience, “I'm not a philosopher, I'm intuitive.” He dismissed congratulations on his acting skill by saying, “I wasted that talent.” Nevertheless, RóÅ¼ewicz demonstrated an excellent feel of the stage during a soiree in the National Theater in 1998:

…What is first? Writing? No. Reading is first. When you're my age, you begin to feel that what you read is equally important to what you write. Sometimes more important, more interesting. Poetic soirees should change. Whenever I listen to my poems read by somebody else, I get the urge to correct them. Or to read somebody else's. I recently came back to Demons by Dostoyevsky, maybe after forty years. There is a genial masterpiece of a description of a soiree. An old writer Karmazinov – whose character was inspired by Turgieniev – he cannot finish reading his “Merci, Merci” humoresque… He read, and read until the young people started teasing him. I was quite abashed by the whole description.

He started reading Staff's Mickiewicz but stopped after the first stanza because of someone's cellphone signal. “Please leave!” sounded the voices from the audience. “Who's to leave? Me? I won't go,” protested the poet. “Where's the fire brigade? Police? Security?”

“Where's good breeding?” came a question from the audience. The owner of the ringing phone finally left. “We had a nice break,” the poet didn't lose his composure. “So now, I will read my poem ‘Where evil comes from’…” At that moment the silence was interrupted by the sound of a camera shutter. The poet stopped reading again. The whole situation seemed straight out of The Scattered File.

Derisive Humility

His bitter account with the contemporary past, as it tries in vain to find itself in the chaos of contemporary life, is illustrated in his dramas. His debut play The Card Index (written in the years 1958-1959) is a pinnacle achievement in the cannon of post-war drama, opening an emergence of new staging possibilities in Poland and beyond.

The play was published under censorship in the Dialogue magazine (02/1960), and later along withThe Green Rose by the National Publishing Institute in 1961. The full uncensored version was only published by Integral Arts in WrocÅ‚aw 1972. The play first premiered in 1960 in the Dramatical Theater in Warsaw under the direction of Wanda Laskowska.

As Zbigniew Majchrowski remarked, The Card Index is contemporary to The Teutonic Knights in that it was written before man went to space, before the Second Council of Vatican, before the erection of the Berlin Wall and the career of the Beatles.

The strength of the play is the derisive humility the character feels towards himself, and RóÅ¼ewicz towards his character – wrote Jan BÅ‚oÅ„ski. The gibberish in which the author often drowns the action, has a method and aim – a refusal of tragism. Only mockery can save our clear-headedness and thus our freedom… The author evokes an unclear but undefeated hope which he kept at the bottom of his heart. – [Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz The Card Index. The Scattered file, Kraków 1997]

The Card Index consists of two images: the internal emptiness of the Character and a flood of phenomenae, people and objects that flows through his room. No other play has changed the face of European drama to the degree that The Card Index has. Since it first premiered its formal novelty has never lost perspicuity, nor has the complicated, firmly Polish subject-matter hindered the play from entering stages abroad. There is nary a season when The Card Index is not published or staged somewhere in the world.

RóÅ¼ewicz's debut play became a classic of theatrical avant-garde, a vivid form of theatre that touches upon the crux contemporary problems. However Konrad Swinarski, who directed the play twice, in 1965 in Tel Aviv and two years later for the Television Theater (with Tadeusz Åomnicki as the Character), muses that it lacks a proper ending:

"If RóÅ¼ewicz only dared to write one more final scene," he said in 1973, “then The Card Indexwould be a contemporary play. It is written in a beautiful language, it has both literary culture and tradition, it's both sensual and political it has everything I value in a play, nevertheless it has no continuation."

The Chronic Forerunner

Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz in the lens of Janusz Drzewucki – Image Gallery

The Scattered File fulfills Swiniarski's demand and authors the idea of a “play written on stage.” RóÅ¼ewicz experimented to repeat the phenomenon of the Card Index in the free speech reality brought by the Third Republic.

Thus the Scattered File came about, a cycle of open rehearsals which the author directed and played with the actors from November 17 to December 2, 1992 on the camera stage of the Polish Theater in WrocÅ‚aw. Apart from minor changes in the text, most of it are extracts from newspapers, the sermons of Skarga or speeches by PiÅ‚sudski.

The actors brought newspaper articles. One Card Index text about beer grew to be seven. The construction of the play on stage mad its record a lot longer than the canonical version. However, none of the rehearsals of the Scattered File covered everything that was printed in the book.

It was a time of subversive topics such as the illegal trade of human organs, or the argument of the rabbis to give their seal of approval for kosher vodka produced in Polish distilleries. An entire poem is comprised of newspaper adverts. There's another, especially ironic, poem composed of fragments of parliamentary debates. RóÅ¼ewicz, a chronic forerunner, proved that with the disappearance of censorship a new habit came about – uncontrolled garrulity and verbosity. He had found the danger and mocked it in a pastiche of parliamentary debates dominated by empty routine and formalities.

The formal experiment of the Scattered File did not in any way disrupt the integrity and timelessness of the first version. The record of the play gives directors a whole new range of texts which can be scattered and used anew. In 1998 Kazimierz Kutz brilliantly brought the play to the Television Theatre with a highly suggestive vision of the Character, as played both by Jerzy Trela and Krzysztof Globisz, entangled between past and present in the political and mental transformations.

The Wise Man in a Jester's Mask

No one smuggles tradition on stage as successfully and in such a novel way as RóÅ¼ewicz. Although his tradition has been unfairly neglected and ridiculed, the previous century does not know an instance of such an influential Polish writer.

The strength of the author's art lies in the ability to combine opposites. On one hand he uses a classical, sophisticated form, but implements it to deliver fresh and unconventional content. He also performs the same strategy in reverse: subjects from the past are often given innovative forms of expression, so that his creations are ambiguous, disturbing and universal at once.

His plays feature a duality of characters who come from the intelligent class (however, he also finds room for simple peasants, like WaluÅ› in Do piachu or Wrona in The Card Index). Personages whose noble duties (God, honour, fatherland) have been questioned in the post-yaltan reality and doomed to failure; futile, eternal rebellion; or giving up and opportunistically subjugating oneself to illusory comforts; these were all visible in the drama, “Witnesses or our little stabilization.”

Few can deal with the media as well as RóÅ¼ewicz. However, deeming his creations journalistic would be a gross simplification. As a clear-sighted observer and amateur of the press he subjugates the intake of news to artistic treatment. Under his penmanship they become metaphors for the fate of the contemporary man. In line with the romantic traditon RóÅ¼ewicz both disdains and admires, everyone can find a reflection of their own life in his characters as they are anchored in the specifics of history.

In the play He Left the House, forty-year old Ewa, anxious about her husband’s long absence, calls for the police. She and her daughter Gizela have difficulties giving a description: “Daddy was nondescript, not much like anything, like everyone.” Meanwhile the amnesia-stricken Henryk wanders around town, finally reaching a cemetery where he is witness to an excellent “Shakespearean” scene: two undertakers over a grave where lies “at one time a martyr, at another a knave.” Afterward he comes back home, merrily lacking the memory. However, his wife soon starts to “educate” him, filling his head with judgments and stereotypes. Henryk absorbs the cliches compliently, but later comes back to his senses to again leave the house.

RóÅ¼ewicz’s dramaturgy has a renewable value thanks to the irony infused in the obstacles of his plays. Year after year these works affirm his prophetic talent. In each rendition, his predictions regarding the destruction of the natural environment arouse as much emotion as they did in the premiere. The vision of trash falling through the cafe windows in A Woman Sits remains terrifying. Although we have made some progress since the play was written, the world is still heading towards self-annihilation – war continues, environmental issues continues to dominate the news.

On All Fours tells the story of an old infantile writer, who like the brilliant French painter Maurice Utrille, is happiest about his electric train. Laurent's fun is disturbed by the overprotective maid Pelasia and the swarm of intruders who want to bask in his glory. His office will soon be invaded by “The Girl” who presumably wants to write a dissertation. However, she doesn't spare any efforts to seduce him, quickly becoming his wife and heiress. The dead Laurenty will still be sipping Pelasias soup in his apartment – now turned into a museum — where the Widow shows the Profane around telling completely delusive stories.

RóÅ¼ewicz’s works often annoy, provoke, and occasionally incite outrage. The hyper-charged sexuality of the characters in his morally subversive and pioneering White Wedding tore apart the atmosphere of an old gentry manor, in which to girls became women. The erotic staffage – now really naive – provoked a critical outcry, among them party members such as Atrur Sandauer. Meanwhile the first post-war topless scene, with Barbara SuÅ‚kowska as Paulina under the direction of Tadeusz Minc, brought crowds of spectators to The Small Theater.

Do Piachu earned itself a bad reputation among the Home Army veterans. RóÅ¼ewicz describes guerrilla life, but without the patriotic highs, presenting what other often fail to mention: the mud, dirt, lice, blood, poor quality food, the disconnection from our close ones, the absence of women, the severe discipline. WaluÅ›, a village peasant who dreams of seeing Kraków and CzÄ™stochowa, comes back from a predatory excursion. His two superiors who took part in it have made off with the loot. The commanders focus their anger on the boy with animal treatment to which he uncertainly obeys. RóÅ¼ewicz’s anti-epic about anti-heroes, the absurdities of war and the dehumanization it causes, futile sacrifice in the name of a restrictive law, caring for thy neighbor, his pain, suffering and death, probes the boundaries of human debasement and sacrifice.

The outrage of the veteran milieu that broke out after the first two stagings of the play (by Tadeusz Åomnicki in the Warsaw Teatr Na Woli in 1979 and Kazimierz Kutza The Television Theater in 1991) caused the author to place limitations on access to his works. Of late, only Janusz OpryÅ„ski and Witold Mazurkiewicz have succeeded of late, on behalf of from the Provisorium Theater and the Theater Company in Lublin, in 2003.

Neither scandal nor subversiveness alone necessitates greatness, as some worshipers of theatrical currents may assert; these qualities must be supported by artistic justification.

The contents of the play Trelemorele can be best summed up in the subtitle: “A soap opera for public and private television.” RóÅ¼ewicz blantantly undermines the language of the medium that in attempt to be endearing ultimately becomes jibberish mixed with a dose of kitsch and perversity. The family in front of the set consumes the medley of images that flow out of debilitating game shows, infantile commercials, imbecile series and unreliable news. A nervous walk among the channels doesn't change anything. Everywhere it is the same thing, equally nauseous and hopeless.

The timelessness of his plays, avant-garde in form and rebellious in content, is also not confirmed by the frequency in which these works are staged. Despite being a few decades old they retain a contemporary bite. With bitter irony they show the everyday life of the Warsaw intelligence, as seen by one of the most clear-sighted annalists of Polish reality in recent history.

His plays provoke imagination with a metaphorical, intelligent and often razor-sharp language. The longevity of those plays abroad indicates that his language resonates with an international audience.

RóÅ¼ewicz addresses the most serious matters in a fickly, roguish manner, a subversive, who like StaÅ„czyk, dons the jester's mask to shamelessly hit you in the face with the truth.

Author: Janusz R. Kowalczyk, July 2013.

JANUSZ R. KOWALCZYK

Editor at Culture.pl since 2009, specializes in literature. Graduate of: theatre studies and film studies at the Jagiellonian University, a part-time screenwriting course at the National Film School in ÅódÅº. Artist of the cabaret Piwnica pod Baranami (1978-1987), theatre critic for "Rzeczpospolita" (1990-2009). Awards: Zbigniew Raszewski Prize, a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Author of "WracajÄ…c do moich Baranów" (published by Trio, 2012), a book about the Piwnica pod Baranami cabaret, and more.

About Us, Ambassadors of International Culture, Educational Programs

INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL CENTER AND ITS PROGRAMS

August 7, 2014 HannaB_home

Ambassadors of International Culture

The District of Columbia is unique among American communities in its great concentration of embassies and international dignitaries. Despite only being a few miles away from these great resources, many students within and around the District of Columbia have little knowledge of the world outside their neighborhoods. Through the Ambassador of International Culture program, we hope to make these resources more accessible to urban students and enrich the students through interaction with persons of different cultures.

Under the program, the Center forms a close relationship with one of the District of Columbia’s many embassies, both to help tailor the interactive learning program to the selected culture, and to provide students with a hands-on opportunity to interact with persons from that culture. Working together, the Center and the embassies can create an environment that allows for students to gain a greater cultural understanding than through either resource alone.

For instance, as a result of 2007/2008 embassy adoption program with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, the students in the program had the opportunity to travel to Poland to give a performance at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw at the special invitation of the First Lady of Poland, Mrs. Maria KaczyÅ„ska. This program gave the students an opportunity to exchange ideas, not only amongst themselves and with instructors, but also with persons who are members of the culture that the students were studying at a given time, and provided for further cultural enrichment of the students by immersion in Polish culture through the duration of the trip.

Interactive Learning Method of Teaching

Each year, we will explore a different international culture. The Center will promote the culture and help the students learn through two interconnected programs – the Interactive Learning Method and the Embassy Adoption program. The scope of the interactive learning is not limited to theater and drama.
We will provide a special educational program of interactive learning that is specially designed to help teachers and students better comprehend cultural artistic compositions and find the joy in discovering new customs through art, music, dance, song, crafts, cooking, theater games, and performance.

The Center is devoted to working with young students to increase their social skills, reading comprehension, movement, and speaking skills. In addition, we also incorporate more traditional teaching techniques, such as lectures, reading, and demonstrations.

ATICC EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS:

Ambassador Theater Studio Classes

Ambassador Theater offers studio classes exploring international literature and drama through movement,voice and improvisation. Through Ambassador Theater’s unique international cultural exchange, the students have the opportunities to experience Art and Drama in both enriching and innovative ways, sure to inspire both individual and collaborative growth in years beyond. Classes, taught by highly experienced professionals from all over the world, are available for three age groups: Globetrotters (4-6 years old), Voyagers (7-9 years old), and Explorers (10 and up).

Ambassadors of International Culture Outreach Programs

Ambassadors of International Culture is an interactive educational program, which exposes students to a variety of cultures through theater. The Ambassador Theater brings resources from local embassies to help provide students with enrichment activities, allowing them to become well-educated global citizens and interact with international leaders of today. Showcased in their artwork, theater games and performance, this program connects to the students’ studies in school, improving their overall academic performance, reading and comprehension skills, and concentration and memorization ability.

Summer Theater Production Camps

Ambassador Theater offers two different summer camps, both of which use international literature as a platform for artistic creation and performance. Both camps provide a well-rounded production experience from a multicultural standpoint, ending with a showcase. Through both individual work and teamwork the students will open their minds to endless possibilities. Professional instructors guide them through scene work, theater games, and activities in projection and movement. Children ages 4-13 will enjoy a two week camp at the George Washington Masonic Memorial Theater in Alexandria, Virginia, and teens ages 12 and up a will experience mounting a three week full scale production at the Source Theater, in Washington, DC.

Special Workshops and Educational Lectures:

Play-reading Workshops: Ambassador Theater’s play-reading workshops offer the opportunity to discover plays from all over the world and tap into the various cultures within them. Through these readings, participants get the chance to collaborate with esteemed designers, directors, playwrights, and actors from all over the world and discuss the plays on a deep, thought-provoking level.
Workshops with International Guest Artists: Ambassador Theater’s Guest artist workshops offer exciting openings into the world of artists and scholars from all over the globe. Experts in their fields, the topics of these workshops range, including a variety of different styles in acting, play-writing, directing, and production. Using lectures and question and answer settings, participants will learn the specific style of the speaker and relate that knowledge into their own work and beyond.

Internship Program

Ambassador Theater International Cultural Center is offering special internship programs for talented students to provide the students opportunities to learn more about the workings of the theater in many areas:

Production and House Management
Technical Support in the Set Construction, Costumes, Props, Lights and Stage Managment
Marketing and Development
Acting Internships

Featured Slideshow

Are you ready to Dance – Join the Group of Zharava June 14th in Old Town Alexandria

Gallery June 9, 2014 HannaB_home

DON"T MISS THE PERFORMANCES OF ZHARAVA AS PART OF THE CELEBRATION OF ARTS
SATURDAY JUNE 14, 2014

3:00 PM TORPEDO ARTS CENTER, 105 N Union Street, Alexandria VA

4:30 PM Market Street, in front of the City Hall, Alexandria VA

ZHARAVA

The Bulgarian folk-dance ensemble Zharava was established in January, 2007. Within its first six months, the group gathered more than 20 enthusiastic members, including natives of Bulgaria, Russia and the U.S. The fire in each member’s heart is implied by the group’s name: Zharava – 'burning embers.'

Zharava's mission is to preserve the rich Bulgarian folk-dance tradition, and to enhance the awareness of Bulgarian folk arts (including dance, music, song and rhythm) throughout the U.S. and the world. The Artistic Director of Zharava is a longtime professional folk dance instructor and choreographer, Desi Jordanoff. The organization aims to advance its mission through performance and participation in dance and music festivals, through delivering training and workshops, through organizing student performances, and through holding recreational dance events. With all these activities, Zharava tries to educate people and create community through the experience of Bulgarian folklore. Zharava workshops include selections from the rich dance styles belonging to all ethnographically defined regions of Bulgaria.

Today, Zharava already has gathered 85 members and continues to attract more new students. 55 members are actively participating in the ensemble’s training classes and their number grows consistently. All current members are organized in three tiers: beginners, intermediate and advanced (performing group). All three groups have been exposed to different levels of difficulty and follow three specific tracks of training to learn the particular dance styles, techniques, and rhythms of individual ethnographic regions of Bulgaria. Zharava’s advanced group consists of a strong core of dancers, who have advanced through vigorous training during the past seven years. These core dancers form the ensembles performing group, which demonstrates the color, rhythm and dance mastery to the community. Part of Zharava’s training incorporates traditional dances from all ethnographic regions of Bulgaria. The curriculum also includes studying authentic folk traditions brought from villages in Bulgaria and workshops in costume design.

During its seven years of existence, Zharava has demonstrated an increasing level of acquired knowledge and skill. It has also garnered great support in the arts and national communities in greater metropolitan Washington, DC. The group delivered more than fifty concerts and presentations at various venues spanning from community, school celebrations and festivals through events and initiatives, the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area, Maryland and Northern Virginia. In addition, the group has participated in multiple presentations on behalf of organizations, such as the Maryland Council for the Arts, Annual Celebration of Cultures held by the World Bank Group; celebrations held by the Bulgarian Community Center and the Bulgarian Music Society of greater Washington, DC; Washington Folklore Society; Ambassador Theater, Washington Revels, and events organized by the Embassy of Bulgaria to name a few.

One of Zharava’s accomplishments is a successful pilot project to establish and develop an affiliate group at the University of Richmond. Founded in the fall of 2007, the dance group in Richmond attracted more than 30 members, including Bulgarian and international students, who continue to express their passion and love for Bulgarian folk dance. As a result of this collaboration today the group in Richmond gathers weekly to further explore the rich Bulgarian folklore dance. One of the most fruitful and successful collaborations Zharava has fostered with the singing group Zunitza founded as an exciting spin off from the dance group members in Richmond. Today Zharava and Zunitza collaborate on many joint projects and perform together at many venues in Washington, DC metropolitan area.

For seven years ensemble Zharava has developed and fostered solid working relationships with many organizations such as Bulgarian Folk Orchestra “Ljuti Chushki’, Folklore singing groups “Orfeja”, “Slaveja”, “Svitania”, Bulgarian Educational and Cultural Center in Washington, DC, National Catherdral School and individual artists, musicians and singers. In 2007, Zharava’s Artistic Director, Desi Jordanoff created a successful children project at the Bulgarian Educational Center and founded the children dance group Zdravetz. Today, with more than 25 members the group has grown to accommodate a second tier of children attending the Bulgarian Educational Center. Bulgarian Folk Dance group Zdravetz has participated in concerts and presentations with Zharava dance Ensemble at multiple venues such as the Ambassador Theater, The American University, St. Nicholas Church Festival and others.

International Fest

INTERNATIONAL FEST – OCTOBER 10, 2013!

August 1, 2013 HannaB_home

JOIN OUR TEAM OF ARTISTS, PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS!

Watch the Ambassador Theater's Retrospective created by George Gordon

The event highlighted Ambassador Theater’s mission to build international cultural awareness, provide a high standard of international repertoire based on close relations with the diplomatic and cultural representatives of different countries in the United States, and provide interactive educational programs for the youth of the District of Columbia, DC Metro area, and around the United States.

Team of the Ambassador Theater thanks all its artists, memeber, friends and supporters for their continuous support!

Classes

Exciting classes start on Wednesdays May 8, 2013

February 15, 2013 HannaB_home

NEW SEMESTER OF CLASSES ON WEDNESDAYS — REGISTRATION OPEN NOW!

Ambassador Theater offers studio classes exploring international literature and drama through movement, voice and improvisation. Through Ambassador Theater’s unique international cultural exchange the students have the opportunity to experience Art and Drama in enriching and innovative ways, inspiring both individual and collaborative growth. Classes are taught by highly experienced professionals from all over the world: Award-winning director Ms. Lilia Slavova and well recognized art instructor, Ms. Deborah Pawlik. The classes are available for three age groups: Globetrotters (4-6 years old), Voyagers (7-9 years old), and Explorers (10 and up).
Register and Pay On-Line Through INSTANT SEATS

“A new experience where imagination and education come together.”

EXCITING ART AND DRAMA CLASSES FOR KIDS 4- 18 years old

At the Convergence Lab Theater in Alexandria VA

Join Ambassador Theater in discovering the beauty of children's international literature and culture, explore nursery rhymes, songs, fables and walk through the adventures of many famous characters from the most admired stories.
The classes are taught by a professional, acting coaches and artists, whose main focus will be movement, speech and basic acting skills with fun theater games and will finish with a final showcase at the Convergence, THE LAB Theater, 1819 N. Quaker Lane (at Crestwood Drive), Alexandria VA 22302
We also offer exciting Art Classes that help the kids connect with what they learn about in their drama classes. They are able to understand how theater is a true collaboration of all art forms and will focus on making some props, parts of the costumes they will use in their performance, learn about the genre and style used in the play and culture they are studying, and more.

Wednesdays, May 8 – June 12, 2013

6 WEEKS OF CLASSES

BOTH ART AND DRAMA CLASSES are offered one day a week, on Wednesdays:
45 minute DRAMA CLASS: $140
60 minute DRAMA CLASS: $160
90 minute DRAMA CLASS: $240
45 minute ART CLASS: $160
60 minute ART CLASS: $180

PACKAGE SPECIAL: Combo of both Art and Drama Classes
90 minute CLASSES (45 min each of ART and DRAMA): $300 for GLOBETROTTERS
2 hour CLASSES (60 min ART and 60 min DRAMA): $320 for VOYAGERS
2.5 hour CLASSES (60 minute ART and 90 min DRAMA): $400 for EXPLORERS

(To Register for Combo classes scroll down under Drama Classes and choose that option, in the message specify which day you want the child to be registered for)

ART: DRAMA:

Wednesdays

4:15 – 5:00 PM: Globetrotters (4-6 years) 5:00 – 5:45 PM: Globetrotters (4-6 years)
5:00 – 6:00 PM: Voyagers (7-9 years) 6:00 – 7:00 PM: Voyagers (7-9 years)
6:00 – 7:00 PM Explorers (10 and up) 7:00 – 8:30 PM: Explorers (10 and up)

Contact us with any questions using our online form or email us at info@aticc.org. You may pay by check written to Ambassador Theater and send it to: Ambassador Theater, 916 G Street, NW. Washington DC 20001

AMBASSADOR THEATER

Tag Archives: Ambassadors of International Culture

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

“They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Play!” GoFundMe Campaign

Celebration of Dario Fo Feb 26 – March 26, 2016

JOHAN PADAN AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
(Johan Padan a la Descoverta de le Americhe) By Dario Fo
Featuring Mario Pirovano
Feb 26, 2016 MORE INFO to REGISTER will come soon! Do not call please!
at the Embassy of Italy

MASTER CLASS with MARIO PIROVANO

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!
By Dario Fo
Translated by Jon Laskin and Michael Aquilante
Produced By Hanna Bondarewska
Directed by Joe Martin
March 3-March 26, 2016
at FLASHPOINT, 916 G Street, NW, Washington DC

JOIN OUR CIRCLE OF SUPPORTERS: https://www.gofundme.com/y8c72qp8
TICKETS ONLINE

LAST TWO WEEKS of SMARTPHONES – A Smashing Hit!

The Open Theatre of Tadeusz RÃ³Å¼ewicz

ON STAGE- The Trap

The Trap

Get your Tickets Online today!

CAST AND CREW

Congeniality Effect

Derisive Humility

The Chronic Forerunner

Tadeusz RóÅ¼ewicz in the lens of Janusz Drzewucki – Image Gallery

The Wise Man in a Jester's Mask

INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL CENTER AND ITS PROGRAMS

ATICC EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS:

Are you ready to Dance – Join the Group of Zharava June 14th in Old Town Alexandria

DON"T MISS THE PERFORMANCES OF ZHARAVA AS PART OF THE CELEBRATION OF ARTS
SATURDAY JUNE 14, 2014

3:00 PM TORPEDO ARTS CENTER, 105 N Union Street, Alexandria VA

4:30 PM Market Street, in front of the City Hall, Alexandria VA

INTERNATIONAL FEST – OCTOBER 10, 2013!

JOIN OUR TEAM OF ARTISTS, PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS!

Team of the Ambassador Theater thanks all its artists, memeber, friends and supporters for their continuous support!

Exciting classes start on Wednesdays May 8, 2013

You may also Register and Pay On-Line

International Cultural Center

More Info:

More Info:

JOHAN PADAN AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA (Johan Padan a la Descoverta de le Americhe) By Dario Fo Featuring Mario Pirovano Feb 26, 2016 MORE INFO to REGISTER will come soon! Do not call please! at the Embassy of Italy

MASTER CLASS with MARIO PIROVANO

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! By Dario Fo Translated by Jon Laskin and Michael Aquilante Produced By Hanna Bondarewska Directed by Joe Martin March 3-March 26, 2016 at FLASHPOINT, 916 G Street, NW, Washington DC

JOIN OUR CIRCLE OF SUPPORTERS: https://www.gofundme.com/y8c72qp8 TICKETS ONLINE

More Info:

More Info:

More Info:

The Trap

CAST AND CREW

Congeniality Effect

Derisive Humility

The Chronic Forerunner

The Wise Man in a Jester's Mask

More Info:

ATICC EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS:

More Info:

DON"T MISS THE PERFORMANCES OF ZHARAVA AS PART OF THE CELEBRATION OF ARTS SATURDAY JUNE 14, 2014

3:00 PM TORPEDO ARTS CENTER, 105 N Union Street, Alexandria VA

4:30 PM Market Street, in front of the City Hall, Alexandria VA

More Info:

Team of the Ambassador Theater thanks all its artists, memeber, friends and supporters for their continuous support!

More Info:

More Info:

International Cultural Center

JOHAN PADAN AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
(Johan Padan a la Descoverta de le Americhe) By Dario Fo
Featuring Mario Pirovano
Feb 26, 2016 MORE INFO to REGISTER will come soon! Do not call please!
at the Embassy of Italy

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!
By Dario Fo
Translated by Jon Laskin and Michael Aquilante
Produced By Hanna Bondarewska
Directed by Joe Martin
March 3-March 26, 2016
at FLASHPOINT, 916 G Street, NW, Washington DC

JOIN OUR CIRCLE OF SUPPORTERS: https://www.gofundme.com/y8c72qp8
TICKETS ONLINE

DON"T MISS THE PERFORMANCES OF ZHARAVA AS PART OF THE CELEBRATION OF ARTS
SATURDAY JUNE 14, 2014