Lída Engelová – director
- Lída Engelová is one of the foremost Czech theatre directors, known for her work in leading Czech theatres and on international tours.
- A graduate of the Prague Academy of Dramatic Arts she joined Jan Grossman (Theatre on Balustrade) as assistant Director and in the 1960`s worked on numerous productions there. As assistant Director she also worked for couple of seasons at The National Theatre Prague. In 1970, she spent 6 months with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and Stratford, including the period of Peter Brook`s "A Midsummer Night`s Dream".
- Her work as director has included plays by Goldoni, Moliére, Annouilh, Diderot, Feydeau, Scribe, Tchekhov, Gorin, Vampilov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Fry, Shaffer, Frayn, Nichols, Wilde, Carr, Stephenson, Enquist, Saalbach, Williams, Allen, Gurney, La Bute, Tatte, Yosef-Bar-Yosef, Strindberg, Kafka, etc. Altogether, she has directed about 120 theatre productions.
- She founded the Prague Pocket Theatre together with Zdenka Kratochvílová. This theatre has played nearly 1300 performances of their own productions for children and adults in 15 countries and at many festivals.
- Many of Lída Engelová`s productions have been televised including The Three Musketeers, Crime and Punishment, Antigone, The Gin Game, Thousand and One Passion, The straw chair, Silence, etc. Most of the Prague Pocket Theatre productions have also been shown on television, among them the much - celebrated "Wardrobe on The Beach". Ms. Engelová`s work with Zdenka Kratochvílová was the subject of a documentary film for Czech television, "How to Make A Clown".
- Her work outside the Czech Republic includes directing for instance in St.Petersburg (Experiment theatre - Russia) and London (The Young Vic theatre - Great Britain) both times this involved Franz Kafka`s "The Trial".
- She is the author of articles about Peter Brook and his "Mahabharatha"; she also wrote her own book - "Brook`s Midsummer Night`s Dream" and the epilogue for the Czech publishing of Brook`s "The empty Space". Ms. Engelová is also the author of plenty of articles about the theatre creators in Czech republic and abroad.
- For many years her activities as an actress, author and director have been connected with one of Prague`s prestigious small theatres VIOLA. Both actors in production of Coburn`s "The Gin Game" received The Thalia Award.
- Lída Engelová also has experience in directing drama for the Radio - she directed about 60 productions - plays by Radzinski, Schiller, Saalbach, Enquist, Camus, de Filippo, Mitterrer, Chatelet, Makhele, Shakespeare, etc. Her "Macbeth" received the Listeners Award for the best radio production 2001.
- Since the velvet revolution in the former Czechoslovakia Lída Engelová has worked as a director in the Municipal theatres in Prague.
- In the 1994 she became a free-lance director.
- There are also many records later audio tapes and CD`s with her voice and with her directing of first of all poetry (for instance J.Prévert, Saint-Exupéry) and fairytales.