The performance is a co-production of Powszechny Theatre and the Stage Songs Review.

Poster design: HOMEWORK graphic studio

It will be the only opportunity to listen the stage song in Norwegian! What a beautiful absurdity, they don’t understand themselves. Kaisers Orchestra is a radical dose of rock & roll, bizarre stories, eclectic arrangements and theatre. In Norwegian, I would say: er et spektakulært, ekstremt energisk og uforutsigbart band. I highly recommend this concert!

We will give you a hint: : “uforutsigbart” means “unpredictable”.

Kaizers Orchestra: European Comeback Tour 2024 – 18 March, 7pm.

Tickets can be purchased HERE.

Photo: Stian Andersen

Photos: Marianna Kulesza

script, direction: Ewa Konstancja Bułhak, arrangements, music direction: Olga Lisiecka, choreography: Patrycja Grzywińska, set design, costumes: Kamila Bukańska, sound direction: Miłek Smyl, light direction: Karolina Gębska

Cast
Karolina Gwóźdź – Julia, Olga Lisiecka – Lucy, Mary Pawłowska –Leaving, Wojciech Melzer – Gustaw, Tomasz Osica – Torrero, Mikołaj Śliwa – Tolo

PPA production: Karolina Wawrzyńczak

Jerzy Wasowski – which we sometimes forget in the face of the legendary Old Timers’ Cabaret (Kabaret Starszych Panów) – was not only a writing partner with Jeremi Przybora.
The brilliant composer was also an actor, radio presenter, engineer, sound engineer, Polish Radio journalist and teacher, and had worked with the paramount artists of pre- and post-war Poland.
The title of the performance comes from a song written for Hanna Skarżanka for the Szpak Cabaret. As in a Fotoplastikon, each melody reveals a different image to the viewer/listener and often comes with a surprise.
So here he is: Wasowski the famous (because the show is essentially his greatest hits) and at the same time less so (because no one has ever performed the songs of Przybora, Młynarski and Brok a capella, with just make-up, monochrome costumes and elaborate choreography as the only theatrical context).
“I have been fascinated by Master Wasowski for years, but this work is special. I decided to tell stories with the Master’s songs using only one instrument: the human voice, its sound and power”, says Ewa Konstancja Bułhak. “We want to talk about love, passion and hope. We invite you to a world of quality and tenderness. A sensibility that makes our presence on stage meaningful”.

fot. Kamila Szcześniak

script: Agata Biziuk i Anna Domalewska, direction: Agata Biziuk, music: Grzegorz Rdzak, choreography: Krystyna Lama Szydłowska, set design and costumes: Maks Mac

PPA production: Karolina Wawrzyńczak

The 1990s. The first decade of freedom, new beginnings, a crazy time of change, big problems, and transformational challenges. Miracle workers, hucksters, and telesales. It was also a time of opportunities. Of the chances to start afresh. It was a time when Rafał, Miłosz, Malwina, Marek and Iza had to grow up and discover their individuality. “Milk in a Tube” brings together, as if through a lens, the greatest curiosities of the Polish transformation – the enthusiasm for the West and, on the other hand, the helplessness of our society in the face of the opportunities it has been given. The artists delve into the sweet and sour memories that once filled their reality. It is a personal story in the shadow of hope, uncertainty and controversial parenting methods. The actors argue with the figures of their parents, who, unlike Generation Y, associated adulthood with a steady job, starting a family and the need for stability. Is the new always better? Or has nothing changed, and we still repeat the mistakes of our ancestors? With the childhood objects on display, the show balances between exhibition and documentary. The artists take us on a journey through time and confront us with what has shaped us – today’s adults.

fot. Michał Wiraszka

Producers
Concept, direction: Marta Górnicka
libretto: Marta Górnicka & team(Ukrainian-Belarusian-Polish)
music: Wojciech Frycz, Marta Górnicka, traditional music
Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish; quote from „Szczedriwki” by Nikołaj
Leontowicz
choreography: Evelin Facchini
set design: Robert Rumas
costumes: Joanna Załęska
dramaturgical cooperation: Olga Byrska, Maria Jasińska
video, video documentation: Michał Rumas, Justyna Orłowska
video projections: Michał Jankowski
lighting: Artur Sienicki
vocal coach and vocal preparation: Joanna Piech-Sławecka
stage manager and assistant director: Bazhena Shamovich
choreographer’s assistant: Maria Bijak
movement workshops: Krystyna Lama Szydłowska

Ukrainian translation of libretto: Olesya Mamchych
Belarusian translation of libretto: Maria Pushkina
English translation of libretto: Aleksandra Paszkowska

consultation in the field of Ukrainian entomusicology: Anna Ohrimchuk
consultation on Ukrainian children’s games: Venera Ibragimova
translation during rehersals: Marharyta Huretskaya
credits preparation : Zofia Szymanowska

producers from Fundacja CHÓR KOBIET: Marta Kuźmiak,
Anna Galas-Kosił
producers from Teatr Powszechny: Magdalena
Płyszewska

production: Fundacja CHÓR KOBIET in Warsaw and Maxim Gorki
Theater in Berlinie

in cooperation with: Teatr Powszechny w Warszawie; Festival
d’Avignon; Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scène européenne;
SPRING Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht); Tangente St. Pölten –
Festival Für Gegenwartskultur (Austria)

Partners of the project: Teatr Dramatyczny im. Gustawa Holoubka; Nowy
Teatr w Warszawie; Instytut Ukraiński; Fundacja dla Wolności w
Warszawie (independent, public non-profit organization operating for mogrants from Ukraine, Czechnya, Belarus, Tajikistan and other countries, who settled in Warsaw and to whom the greatest support is addressed); „Przystanek Świetlica” (a common room for children and migrant youth), Solidarny Dom Kultury „Słonecznik” (center community for Ukrainian artists in Warsaw)
The project is co-financed by the capital city of Warsaw.

PPA production: Karolina Gonera

Cast
actresses: Liza Kozlova, Palina Dabravoĺskaja, Svitlana Onischak,
Kateryna Taran, Svitlana Berestovska, Valeriia Obodianska, Sasha
Cherkas, Maria Tabachuk, Yuliia Ridna, Natalia Mazur, Aleksandra
Sroka, Katarzyna Jaźnicka, Bohdana Zazhytska, Anastasiia Kulinich,
Hanna Mykhailova, Katerina Aleinikova, Elena Zui-Voitekhovskaya,
Kamila Michalska, Maria Robaszkiewicz, Polina Shkliar, Ewa
Konstanciak

Our show is about women and war.
About defence mechanisms, about responsibility.
About our reaction to war in Europe.
About the rituals of war violence against women and civilians, which are always the same.
(Marta Górnicka)

Twenty-one women: the Ukrainians – refugees from Mariupol, Kyiv, Irpin and Kharkiv – Belarusians and Poles. They sing children’s rhymes and old songs, cast spells and shout about politics.
At the beginning, there is a shchedrivka, a ritual of happiness and rebirth, a wish for all people for a new time and a good life. It’s a strange idea, because the following songs mix a chronicle of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the individual stories of the refugee women.
“There are no props, no lighting, no instrumental music, plain costumes, but the audience’s eyes are not left dry,” reported a moved reviewer* after the premiere. “The play shows the war from the point of view of women, persons who have the ‘privilege of escape’ or the curse of powerlessness. It tells of the crimes, of women confined to the sphere of inaction, of their participation in the war reduced to the role of mothers and weepers. (…) We leave the theatre with a feeling of powerlessness in the face of the world’s hypocrisy and with an awareness of our duty to act. With pity and fear. The chorus tells us that we can change reality without actually leaving home”.
* Aniela Bocheńska, e-teatr, “Nowa Siła Krytyczna”

fot. Bartek Warzecha

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/117022-000-A/a-song-for-wartime-frauen-im-krieg/

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/117022-000-A/a-song-for-wartime-frauen-im-krieg/

Marina Mashtaler, Johannes Niehaus, Łukasz Pośpieszalski, Darek Bafeltowski, Piotr Budniak

PPA production: Renata Majewska

A year ago, in the final of the Song Interpretation Contest, the petite brown-haired girl in red tights sang the song about Mack The Knife from “The Threepenny Opera” in German and – in Polish – her own “Fog”.
Her ten-minute performance went down in history. With no fewer than five awards – including the Grand Prix, the Audience Toucan, and the Radio RAM Award – Marina Mashtaler set a festival record for the number of awards won in one go and at the first attempt.
The artist came to Wroclaw from Ukraine and, as we already know, is a talented singer. She is also a songwriter and translator, a Polish philologist, and an actress (mainly in the experimental theatre Ej Aj).

“Kwit/Kвіт” is her premiere project in collaboration with the composer Johannes Niehaus. Ukrainian, Polish and German literary and musical contexts are combined here with the unlimited possibilities of synthesisers and… field recordings, from Wrocław, among other places.

The leitmotif is flowers. Flowers in the mouth, flowers in the eyes, flowers in the lungs, flowers in the brain. The florist’s is a magical place where you can do anything, get flowers for any occasion: for winter sleep, for spring awakening, for summer meadow walks and bonfires, for the long autumn. The florist’s is a never-ending bloom, an eternal garden, home to joy, sadness, indifference, love and death.

fot. Justyna Żądło

Musicians
Ryszard Tymon Tymański, Piotr Pawlak, Jacek Prościński, Szymon Burnos, Olaf Deriglasoff, Jerzy Mazzoll

PPA production: Roksana Mazur

Kury – in English, The Hens – are alive and still laying golden eggs of mockery.
Founded by Ryszard Tymański (aka Tymon) thirty-two years and nine months ago, the band has issued five albums. But let’s face it, the one and only “P.O.L.O.V.I.R.U.S.” has defined their legendary status – hello, Wroclaw, how do you like it! – a monumental album, to quote the official promotional material for the recent reissue, and please don’t erase it, “that fucked up the lives of a generation of forty-somethings”.

That is not true, of course. “P.O.L.O.V.I.R.U.S.” could not have ruined anyone’s life because, as the Book says, laughing is healthy, even through tears, and is a recipe for a successful existence on Earth.
The old Hens were a yass and cabaret act worthy of sincere laughter. The new Hens – as the reissue of the famous album on orange double vinyl and audiophile cassette tape accompanies the reactivation of the band and a tour (interruptus) – is now a cabaret-yass band, performing with a line-up close to the original. Its undisputed frontman is Tymon, constantly making jokes about jazz, reggae, rock, metal, shanties and every music in the world, as befits a chicken-house boss.

@kury #kury #reaktywacjakury #kury2024 #zespolmuzycznykury #rekatywacjazespolmuzycznykury #ppakury2024

fot. Krzysztof Salwarowski

The two parts of the Finale Concert are performed both at 16:00 and 20:30.
The 20:30 concert ends with the award ceremony.

Part I: The finale of The Song Interpretation Contest

Producers
set design, costumes, dolls: GRUPA MIXER
light design: Mateusz Sikora
compositions/ arrangaments/ music direction: Adam Lepka

the finale of the contest will be led by Maciej Maciejewski and Mikołaj Woubishet

PPA production: Agnieszka Kozak

The names of the finalists will be announced on Friday 15 March late evening
The finalists will be evaluated by a jury consisting of Magdalena Miśka-Jackowska, Dorota Pomykała, Katarzyna Szyngiera, Mariusz Kiljan i Marcin Macuk.

The awards:
Grand Prix – the Golden Toucan statuette and 25,000 zlotys,
The Toucan of the Journalists,
The Toucan of the Audience,
The ZAiKS Authors’ Association Award for the best performance of a Polish song – 10,000 zlotys
The Polish-German Cultural Society Polonica Award – 4,000 zlotys and an invitation to the next edition of the Rock & Chanson Festival in Cologne,
The Museum of Polish Song in Opole Award – a recording studio session,
The Monika Jaworska Award – a statuette and Tour de RAM: participation in selected programmes and podcasts of Radio RAM,
Media and Art Foundation Award – 5.000 zlotys for promotional activities in media.

This evening will also feature the awards ceremony for the Off Contest and The Master Diploma of the Aleksander Bardini Chapter.

Part II: Top of All Time or Quest for an Eagle’s Shadow

Idea, concept: Magdalena Miklasz
direction: Aneta Groszyńska
dramaturgy: Łukasz Zaleski
set design, costumes, dolls: GRUPA MIXER
light design: Mateusz Sikora
compositions/ arrangaments/ music direction: Adam Lepka

PPA production: Agnieszka Kozak

Cast
Katarzyna Pietruska
Rafał Derkacz
Krzysztof Suszek
Filip Niżyński
Emose Uhunmwangho
Justyna Wasilewska
Sambor Dudziński
Michał Szpak

Nylon jackets, marbled jeans, American TV series about teenagers, chemical flavours in drinks and candy bars – we are now so enthusiastic about the nineties that it is hard to imagine a situation where all this suddenly disappears. Even a part of it: Polish music from those years.
Could you picture it? A world without all those iconic songs?
Exactly this happens in the show “Top of All Time” – erasure, riddance, auto-da-fé – and all thanks to… Marek Niedźwiecki.
“Top of All Time” is a journey to a world where the word “hope” was used in every sentence, where we believed that we could do something together, collectively. It is a reconstruction of events under the motto “Let’s Make Polish Music Great Again”.

director: Mariusz Kiljan, music direction- Remigiusz Hadka, set design: Renata Kurczyńska

Musicians
Mariusz Kiljan, Remigiusz Hadka, Michał Sosna, Patryk Bizukojc, Dawid Broszczakowski, Spacepierre

PPA production: Paweł Krupski

Always asking – where are we headed?
Where’s the truth, the salt of the earth?
Always asking – how to lose
All the sorrow, tears and pain?
Grasping clear and sudden thoughts
Searching where the light is bright
In your eyes, two little sparks
Spell the road, mark the path
O, our world…
(Marek Grechuta)

It is a fact, not an opinion, that the best singer of the songs of Marek Grechuta was Marek Grechuta himself.
But in addition to devout reverence, these songs deserve a second, third and many more lives.
fot. CK Studio Krzysztof Citak
Mariusz Kiljan sings other people’s songs – that is the idea of the stage song! – telling his own stories. He follows the footsteps of the master but does not imitate him. He “borrows” words and melodies and, with his band, gives them a modern, daring form.

And this is what he says about his reasons for embarking on this journey on the Krakow-Wroclaw-Wherever route: “Everywhere in the world we are born, and we die, we miss, and we love, sometimes we are happy, and then we suffer, we cry, and we laugh. All over the world and sometimes as far away from people as possible. There are days when we cannot live without other people, and sometimes only nature can soothe our pain.
That is true everywhere and for every one of us. Everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Everywhere and anywhere at the same time. Anywhere in the world and anywhere in us”.