Ludowy Theatre

The Ludowy Theatre (literally: People's Theatre, Polish: Teatr Ludowy) in Kraków, located at Osiedle Teatralne in District Nowa Huta, opened on December 3, 1955, at a time when the official policy of Socialist realism came to an end, and the 1956 de-stalinization of People's Republic of Poland was about to begin. The Ludowy quickly became known as the city's prime avant-garde stage thanks to collaboration of eminent artists such as theatre theoretician and painter Józef Szajna,Tadeusz Kantor (both, from Academy of Fine Arts), Lidia Zamkow, Krystyna Zachwatowicz and others.

Teatr Ludowy, designed by architects Edmund Dąbrowski and Janusz Ingarden, was built in 1954–1955, with the cubic volume of 14,000 m³, seating 420. It was placed in the centre of a socialist housing estate mainly for ideological reasons (as possible vehicle for workers' indoctrination). However, thanks to revolutionary vision of its first president, Krystyna Skuszanka, Teatr Ludowy became one of the most interesting theatres in the country, with Jerzy Krasowski as its first resident director, and painter Jozef Szajna, as its visionary set designer. Together, they turned the young local venue into an innovative and politically engaging stage with serious intellectual and artistic ambitions. Józef Szajna, a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, became the Theatre artistic director in 1963-1966. In his popular productions of Shakespeare and Greek tragedies, he evoked his own camp experiences; called a theater of death by Peter Brook.

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