English
I’d like to warmly welcome you to this page!
Here you’ll find a brief CV and a short description of my plays currently showing in theatres as well as a list of plays that have been published in languages other than Hungarian (in English, French, German, etc.). There is an extract next to each play, usually an act. If you’re interested, I will happily send the whole play.
I look forward to receiving requests from British and French agencies interested in representing my plays.
Zsolt Pozsgai
Playwright, theatre and film director
Born 1960, Pécs
Married with two daughters (19, 21).
Contact:
Address: 1021 Budapest, Hüvösvölgyi u. 6.
E-mail: pozsgaizsolt@vipmail.hu
Tel: 00-36-30-279-1324
Completed his secondary education in Pécs. At the age of 14 he was already directing an independent amateur theatre company in the city. After secondary school, he tried several jobs as he wished to gain varied experience for his chosen career as a writer. Thus he worked as an ambulance man, the director of a village community centre, a teaching assistant in a village school, a driver, a postman and gynaecological theatre assistant. At the same time he studied Hungarian Literature at Pécs University as a correspondent student. The amateur theatre became a recognised alternative company. When he was 24, he “signed on” with the Pécs National Theatre, working first as an assistant director and then as the theatre’s secretary and dramaturge. When the theatre’s principal director, whom he regarded as his master, left, he too parted ways with the National Theatre and found a position with a book publisher. In the meanwhile he did his national service as an air traffic controller for fighter aircraft. It was then that he wrote his first play, Horatio, which was premiered a year later in the Hevesi Sándor Theatre in Zalaegerszeg. In 1988 he was commissioned with founding a contemporary book publishing house in Budapest, which he managed until 1996. In addition he worked as a dramaturge for a number of theatres – the Madách Theatre, the Arizona Theatre and the Magyar Theatre in Budapest, and, to the present day, he is honorary dramaturge and resident author at several provincial theatres.
Currently he is the artistic director of the Budapest inner city Komédium Theatre, the artistic director of the Pécsvárad Castle Theatre operating in the summer season and dramaturge at the Magyar Theatre in Budapest.
His first play, Horatio (which takes place ten years after Hamlet dies and continues the story of Horatio), was performed in 1988, since when his dramatic works have been regularly shown at theatres in Hungary. By the end of 2005, his 42 pieces, including tragedies, comedies, farces, fairy plays and plays with music, had been premiered in 54 theatres. Over the last seven or eight years he has directed most of his dramatic works himself. For the last two years he has directed films as well.
A number of works have been performed abroad: Red Faust in English at the Bates Theater, Boston, USA; two pieces in German in two consecutive seasons at the summer theatre in Graz, Austria, LISELOTTE IN MAY, and MERRY MADMEN; also in Graz, at the Kellertheater PROPHET WALTZ; and LISELOTTE IN MAY at the Montana National Theatre in Bulgaria and at the Stip National Theatre in the Republic of Macedonia. Most recently, he directed his piece based on a novel by Sándor Márai in the Théâtre de l’Orangerie in Geneva, Switzerland, in the summer of 2005. Mozart and Constanze was on the programme in three cycles at the Kammelspiele in Hamburg in 2006-07-08. Liselotte in May had its premiere in French in the summer of 2007 at the Théâtre de l’Orangerie in Geneva and at the Avignon Theatre Festival, directed by the author. The play has been showing since then. In October 2007 the Varna Opera House presented the musical The Kid in Bulgarian. In 2008 the Chur municipal theatre in Switzerland showed Liselotte in May in German.
Awards:
-Europa Prize – Berlin Playwrights Festival, 1995, for “Arthur and Paul”
-Szép Ernő Prize – best new Hungarian play award, 1994, for “Wax Bird” (Viaszmadár), Madách Theatre, Budapest,
-Hungarian Playwrights Festival 1997 – first place, professional and spectators’ prizes
-Hungarian Playwrights Festival 1998 – first place, professional and spectators’ prizes
-Hungarian Playwrights Festival 1999 – first place, professional and spectators’ prizes
-Golden Lion Prize – best dramatist – Grand Prize of the Persian Academy
Plays currently being shown:
Magyar Theatre, Budapest:
I LOVE YOU, LIGHT – (directed by the author)
Hungary, 11th century. Historical drama about the prince who was blinded and his family living in exile. Historical absurd. Six characters.
TO LOVE UNTIL MADNESS (over one hundred performances since its premiere in 2004, directed by the author) – Musical about the life of a well-known Hungarian singer who died years ago, Pál Szécsi.
Komédium Theatre, Budapest
LISELOTTE IN MAY (continually performed since its premiere in 2004, directed by the author)
Comedy for two actors, in which the male actor plays seven roles. A lonely woman in her thirties, Liselotte, realises that the years are passing by without a partner and she desperately tries to get herself a man by various means. Through no fault of her own, each of her prospective partners dies on the first date… An absurd comedy of a lonely heart. To date the play has been performed in eighteen theatres in six languages. Two roles, a man and a woman.
Szabó Dezső Theatre, Budapest
RED FAUST (several hundred performances since its premiere in 1996 (!))
A historical play about one of the great figures of 20th-century Hungarian history, Archbishop József Mindszenty. Six characters.
BLACK HONEY (premiere in 1999, directed by the author)
Zsuzsanna Lórántffy, a major figure of the Hungarian Reformation, is the heroine of this historical play from the 12th century. Tragicomedy.
Budapesti Kamaraszínház (Studio Theatre), Budapest
MOTHER HOLLE
Stage adaptation of the popular tale by the Grimm brothers. Six characters.
Katona József Theatre, Kecskemét
LISELOTTE IN MAY – premiere: 23 Feb 2007. Directed by the author
THE YOUNG SWINEHERD OF KECSKEMÉT – folk tale, premiere 12 Oct 2007.
Győr National Theatre
RAID, premiere in 2007, directed by Áron Őze
Set in a Mid American city today. The main characters in this crime story are ten women who were rounded up by the police in a raid at night to find out which of them murdered the infamous and detested pimp, Lopez Dial. The investigation is complicated by the fact that the murder can be pinned on most of the women, and indeed most of them admit they did it. The detective has no ordinary task among the ten women determined as hell. One male and ten female roles.
Petőfi Theatre, Veszprém
SNOW QUEEN – musical, directed by the author
Musical adaptation of Andersen’s tale. Composer: Tibor Bornai.
Móricz Zsigmond Theatre, Nyíregyháza
LISELOTTE IN MAY, directed by Tamás Szalma
Pécs National Theatre
THE KID – Directed by Tamás Balikó
Musical based on Chaplin’s film THE KID. The piece has been played in theatres around Hungary; the production in Pécs is the twelfth. Composer: Tibor Nagy.
Kosztolányi Dezső Theatre, Subotica, Serbia
MERRY MADMEN (Mozart and Constanze)
Mozart is on his death bed, but before he breathes his last, he wishes to confess to his loyal partner Constanze all the indiscretions he has committed over the years. Constanze, however, has a riposte, relating her own affairs to him. The confessions degenerate into an awful fight between the two. The play has been performed in several theatres in Hungary and abroad. Two roles, a man and a woman.
Petőfi Theatre, Veszprém
JANUS – absurd play, directed by the author
The play features two legendary figures of Hungarian humanism and 15th-century Renaissance history: Janus Pannonius, the well-known poet, and his friend King Matthias. Before Janus Pannonius died, he organised a plot against his friend. Ever since this has puzzled Hungarian historians. The play offers one explanation that might have happened. An absurd drama with five roles, one woman and four men.
Petőfi Theatre, Sopron
EMBERS, directed by Imre Csiszár
A stage adaptation of Sándor Márai’s internationally renowned novel translated into twenty-two languages. A meeting of two elderly men focusing on an old affair in which they loved the same woman. Three male and two female roles.
MOTHER HOLLE – fairy play
Jókai Theatre, Békéscsaba
THE RED AND THE BLACK – stage version of Stendhal’s novel.
Stage adaptation of the world-famous novel. Ten male and five female roles.
Film and television:
Screenwriter and/or director of several teleplays and television series.
First feature film: CSENDKÚT (Silence Fountain) – premiere October 2007, showing in cinemas – screenwriter, director
The film relates the fate of Attila Gérecz, a young poet who died a martyr’s death in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Most recent television play (director/writer) SZABADSÁGHARC SZEBENBEN (Freedom Fight in Szeben) – Hungarian Television 6 Oct 2007.
The film deals with one of the most interesting episodes of the adolescence of the internationally renowned painter, Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka.
SECRETS OF THE VAL D’ANNIVIERS, documentary – before premiere, writer/director
The people of the Val d’Anniviers in Switzerland believe that they are the direct descendants of the Huns and their great leader, Attila, who were enclosed in a valley by the enemy during the periods of raids in the Middle Ages. Since then they have fostered this cultural inheritance and consider themselves Hungarians. The film examines this.
THE EARTH’S LOVER – feature film, after shooting, before premiere. Writer/director.
Feature film about the maker of the world-famous porcelain from Pécs, the inventor of eosin, Vilmos Zsolnay. A story from Hungary at the end of the 19th century.
Published dramatic works:
SZERETLEK, SZÍNHÁZ (I Love You Theatre, fourteen plays), 2001, Tas Publishing House, Budapest
THÉNEA 2002, Prológus Publishing House, Budapest
MAKACS ALKONY (Tenacious Twilight), 2003, Prológus Publishing House, Budapest
PRÓFÉTAKERINGŐ (Prophet Waltz), 2004, Napút Publishing House, Budapest
Published in Bulgarian
Publisher in German-speaking areas:
WHALESONGS Verlag, Hamburg
Works translated into foreign languages:
ARTHUR AND PAUL – play in two acts
The late meeting of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine in Africa immediately before Rimbaud’s death.
Roles: 4 male, 2 female
Performed at the Madách Theatre and Magyar Theatre, Budapest
In English, French and German
TENACIOUS TWILIGHT – Pyschodrama
A Freudian psychodrama in two acts about the great Swiss spy, Elsbeth Schlagmüller.
Roles: 2 female, 1 male
As yet unperformed.
In German
LISELOTTE IN MAY – tragicomedy in two acts
Liselotte, a lonely woman, attempts to find a partner – seven men, seven chances of happiness. It’s nothing to do with her that each of them dies on their first date. Or perhaps it is?
To date performed by twenty-two Hungarian and foreign theatres.
In English, German, French, Bulgarian and Macedonian.
PROPHET WALTZ – tragicomedy in two acts
Set in the future, a comedy dealing with humanity’s final days. Six prophets arrive on a deserted seashore to travel in a whale’s stomach and save humanity. But only one prophet can go – who will travel with the whale?
Performed by Hungarian and Austrian theatres.
Roles: 2 female, 4 male
In German and Greek.
MERRY MADMEN (Mozart and Constanze) – drama in two acts
Mozart confesses his repeated infidelity to his wife on his death bed. His wife replies by recounting her own affairs. And in recalling these adventures, they get swept away in the current of passion…
Roles: 1 male, 1 female
Performed by Hungarian and German theatres.
In German.
BECAUSE THAT’S HOW MAMMA LIKES IT! – comedy in two acts
The members of the Italian Giannutri family get together once a year to dazzle each other with their achievements. One evening an uninvited and unknown old man arrives whose appearance upsets the family’s life. And it turns out that no one is who they say they are…
Roles: 4 female, 4 male
Performed by several Hungarian theatres.
In Italian and German.
THE KID – musical in memory of Charlie Chaplin
Composer: Tibor Nagy
Spectacular musical with many characters based on Chaplin’s film THE KID, set in America in the twenties.
Performed by several Hungarian and foreign theatres.
In English and German.
EMBERS – drama based on the novel by Sándor Márai
A play in two acts that relates the first meeting in thirty years of two elderly men, who sort out their relationship over the woman who caused them to go their separate ways. The novel has been a great success in many European countries.
Magyar Theatre (Budapest), Petőfi Theatre (Sopron), Théâtre de l’Orangerie (Geneva-Switzerland)
Roles: 3 male, 1 female
In French.
If the extracts from the works have interested you, please send me an e-mail and I will let you have the whole play to read. The author holds all the performing and publishing rights except for German-speaking areas.
Contact:
Address: 1021 Budapest, Hüvösvölgyi u. 6.
E-mail: pozsgaizsolt@vipmail.hu
Tel: 00-36-30-279-1324