Krystian Lupa


Krystian Lupa is a Polish theatre director, set designer, playwright, translator and pedagogue. He has been called "the greatest European living theatre director".

Life and work

He studied physics at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, between 1963-1969 he studied graphics at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, also film directing at the National Higher School of Film in Łódź and finally, theatre directing at the Ludwik Solski Academy for the Dramatic Arts. In Lodz he started to collaborate with Konrad Swinarski, and was influenced by the works of Tadeusz Kantor. After the studies he started working in the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków and also in the Cyprian Kamil Norwid Theatre in Jelenia Góra. Lupa is famous for his specific methods of working with the text and actors in very organic way also calling as „laboratory rehearsals“.
During his career he made a lot of notable productions based on texts of Robert Musil, Thomas Bernhard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz or Witold Gombrowicz.
He was awarded with numerous prominent awards which include Witkacy Prize - Critics' Circle Award, Gold Gloria Artis Medal, Order of Polonia Restituta, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
In 2008, he publicly came out as gay in an interview for Film magazine.
In 2016, he received the Golden Cross of the Stage Award in Lithuanina for staging Thomas Bernhard's play 'Heldenplatz' in Lithuanian National Drama Theatre.