The Timelessness of Jan Antonín Pitínský

Jan Antonín Pitínský, real name Zdeněk Petrželka (*1955) is a poet, prose writer, playwright and theatre director. He has been awarded the Alfréd Radok Prize several times for his work, in October 2007 also the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and in 2023 the Zlín Region Pro Amicis Prize. After graduating from high school and the Secondary Library School in Brno, he had several jobs. From 1975-1980 he worked as an inspector and occasional actor and scriptwriter at the Brno Theatre on a String. In 1979, he began preparing a script from the poetry of Russian poets called Lyrical Aggression, and the following year he performed the play Homage to Dostoyevsky on Česká Street in Brno. It all ended after 10 minutes, when the participants were arrested by the police and taken away for questioning. After the interrogation, all the performers were banned, so he went to the foothills of the Jeseníky Mountains for three 3 years, where he worked outside the theatre. He then returned to Brno, where he began to form the Amateur theatre club troupe with Petr Osolsoba, for which he wrote original plays and also directed. Due to a previous ban on his activities, he created the pseudonym Jan Antonín Pitínský, which he still uses today. At the turn of the 1990s, the Ochotnický kroužek became part of HaDivadlo, where Pitínský became a professional director. His directing work has long been associated not only with HaDivadlo, but also with Prague’s Na zábradlí Theatre. He regularly directed in national theatres in the Czech Republic (Prague, Brno) and Slovakia (Bratislava), and was a frequent guest of the Slovácké Theatre, the Municipal Theatre Zlín, Dejvice Theatre, the Husa na provázku Theatre, Studio Marta, etc. He has also directed operas at the J. K. Tyl Theatre, F. X. Šalda Theatre, Moravian Theatre Olomouc, etc. His directing work covers a wide range of themes and genres, from classical dramas, contemporary plays to documentaries, and is characterised by his work combining stylistic acting techniques with civilism and strong imagery. He retired from directing in 2019 and devotes himself exclusively to literature.

The programme was co-produced by Czech Television and the Theatre World Festival.