Biography

Krzysztof Warlikowski (Polish pronunciation: [ˈkʂɨʂtɔf varliˈkɔfskʲi]; born 26 May 1962) is a Polish theatre director. He is the creator and artistic director of Nowy Teatr (New Theatre) in Warsaw. He studied history, philosophy and Romance languages at the Jagiellonian University and also philosophy, French language and literature at École Pratique Des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne. He graduated in directing from Ludwik Solski Academy for the Dramatic Arts in 1993. Among his teachers was director Krystian Lupa. In the early 1990s Warlikowski worked for some time as Lupa's assistant. He met and learned also from Peter Brook and Giorgio Strehler.Warlikowski directed his first plays at Stary Teatr in Kraków, where he staged Heinrich von Kleist's The Marquis of O. in 1993. His later dramas were performed at various theatres in Poland and Europe, including Teatr Nowy (The New Theatre) in Poznań, Warsaw's Teatr Studio (Studio Theatre), Teatr im. W. Horzycy (W. Horzyca Theatre) in Toruń, Teatr Dramatyczny (The Dramatic Theatre) in Warsaw.Since 1999 he directed for TR Warszawa (Variety Theatre). Currently his plays are being performed at Nowy Teatr (New Theatre) in Warsaw, which he founded in 2008 and at which he is an artistic director.He was the author of the Message of World Theatre Day 2015.In 2021 he received the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the Teatro Biennale in Venice for being "the advocate for a profound renewal of the European language of theatre", "relying on references from cinema and an original use of video, inventing new forms of theatre that aim to re-establish the bond between the play and the audience" encouraging the latter to "rip away the paper backdrop of their lives and to discover what is really hidden underneath".