Krystian Lupa
Krystian Lupa (born 7 November 1943) is a Polish theatre director, set designer, playwright, translator and pedagogue. He has been called "the greatest living European theatre director". Life and work. He studied physics at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, between 1963 and 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. In 1976 , he made his debut as a director by staging Sławomir Mrożek's play "The Slaughterhouse" at the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków where he worked for many years. He also worked at the Cyprian Kamil Norwid Theatre in Jelenia Góra. Lupa is renowned for his specific methods of working with the text and actors in very organic way also known 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, Europe Theatre Prize and Austrian Decoration for Science and Art. In 2014, he received the Nestroy Theatre Prize for the staging of Thomas Bernhard's 1986 novel "Woodcutters". He also received two nominations to Poland's top literary prize, the Nike Award, in 2002 for "Labirynt" and in 2004 for "Podglądania". In 2016, he received the Golden Cross of the Stage Award in Lithuanina for staging Thomas Bernhard's play 'Heldenplatz' (Heroes' Square) in Lithuanian National Drama Theatre. Personal life . In 2008, he publicly came out as gay in an interview for Film magazine. His life partner is actor Piotr Skiba.