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PETR ZELENKA (1967 - ) |
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Nationality: Czech Email: n/a Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: Aura-Pont Theatrical and Literary Agency |
Graduated in scriptwriting and dramaturgy from the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Made his debut as a director in 1993 with a film about punks, Visaci zamek. In 1997 he premiered his most highly awarded film, the episodic film Buttoners, which won the prestigious Czech Lion for best script, direction and film. The popular film Loners (2000) was based on Zelenka's script. He made his debut in the theatre with translations of plays by Michael Frayn. He presented himself as an author and, for the first time, theatre director with the play Tales of Common Insanity.
Adaptation / Translations of Plays by Petr Zelenka
Coming Clean | ||
| 1st Produced: | Cracow | 27 Oct 2007 | ||||
Organisations: | Narodowy Stary Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #109234 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 7 | ||
Parts other: | 1 boy, extras | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Petr Zelenka | |||||
Synopsis: | The main plot follows the story of the writer Jacek. Jacek has a guilty conscience because he had committed a crime: "in a sudden craze" he put to sleep, and then raped his friends' eleven year old son. The second story line is that of a slow downfall of a TV talk-show called Coming Clean in which popular and respected celebrities confess to their sins. That's where Jacek's publisher sends his author after the latter opens his heart to him and tells him about his crime and how he suffers as consequence. Every little bit in the media counts and can help sell Jacek's latest book. After some inner struggle, the protagonist applies and tells well in advance all those having played a role in his crime about appearing on the show. When he leaves the TV studio, he is ready to bear consequences of his past action. He is surprised when nobody reacts - he finds out the show was only recorded, and another pre-recorded instalment was broadcast on that night. Seemingly favourable incidents begin to push the hero on a downward spiral towards deadly emptiness and cynicism. In the end, the show never goes on air (the show's editor is divorcing its presenter). Coming Clean is discontinued and produces a new talk show called Jacek's crime goes unpunished. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Endangered Species | ||
| 1st Produced: | Nova Scena of the National Theatre Prague | 24 Nov 2011 | ||||
Organisations: | National Theatre Prague | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #91904 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Petr Zelenka | |||||
Synopsis: | The play from contemporary Prague shows the world of advertisement and business of pharmaceutical giant companies. The world-wide renowned photographer and past exile, known as Jeremy (60), is lately out of luck. Only the efforts to find better care for his father-in-law who suffers from Alzheimer make him accept a lucrative offer to work with an advertisement agency Pitch Productions on a campaign for Cogitamin, a medicine produced by Delete Company. The man who decides about the campaign is Jeremy´s former classmate, a homosexual Jan `ustr. Jeremy´s wife Jana shows specialist interest in Cogitamin. According to her the drug is suspect for dangerous side-effects that could lead to outbreak of some brain illnesses, but Jan keeps referring to successful tests. Pitch productions finally loose the tender anyway and Jeremy, despite Jana's protests (in the meantime, she got a position with Delete), starts fighting the corporation on the level of a professional campaign. Jeremy beats the company by bringing Jana's father in a wheelchair to his press conference to demonstrate possible consequences of the medicine. This misuse of a member of her family makes Jana decide to leave Jeremy. Cogitamin is taken off free sale. Although Jana admits Jeremy was right, she refuses to return to him and instead is taking care of Jan who is recovering from his personal crash. Jeremy is offered a high position at another multinational pharmaceutical company which he accepts. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Tales of Common Insanity (Pnbehy Obvceineho Silenstyi) | ||
| 1st Produced: | Dejvicke theatre Prague | 2001 | ||||
Organisations: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54780 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 7 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Petr Zelenka. Alfred Radok Award for the best original play of the year in 2001 | |||||
Synopsis: | The story of thirty-five-year-old Peter, who is trying to master the world around him; to win back his girlfriend Jana, who left him because of his "abnormality"; to survive visits to his parents which are never free of his mother's fussy and interfering worries about others; not to go mad due to the crazy methods of satisfaction of his friend Midge; to get used to his strange neighbours who require people with their eyes "on the surface of their faces"; to accept the fact that his boss likes little boys; to get used to the blanket in his room coming to life& In the end there is only one solution: to pack oneself up in a box and send oneself off somewhere very far away. A witty reflection on our times, including a reference to the recent past and its still active influence. The text also plays with references to the sphere of "artistic creativity", in inverted commas because his neighbour is a composer of elevator music, his father was once, in the Communist era, a weekly newsreel commentator and now brings this up in public as a curiosity, and one of Midge's girlfriends, although a cleaner, loves ballet. The action is kept going by the constant effort to find and maintain a real relationship; whether in the case of the younger ones (Peter and his circle), or of their parents. Both the theme and the form of the play relate to the original script-writing profession of the author - the scenes follow one another as in film sequences. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Theremin (Teremin) | ||
| 1st Produced: | Dejvicke theatre Prague | 2005 | ||||
Organisations: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54781 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Petr Zelenka | |||||
Synopsis: | The play is based on the real life of Leon Sergeievich Theremin - an inventor, musician, and a spy. In the words of the father of the modern synthesizer, Robert Moog, without Theremin, Moog himself would not have been able to construct his synthesizer. Theremin was born in 1896, and during the First World War he worked for the radio- technical battalion of the Red Army. In 1920 he completed his important invention: a musical instrument called the thereminvox, which to this day is the only non-contact musical instrument in the world. In 1922 Theremin presented the instrument to the enthusiastic Lenin, who saw it as a magnificent opportunity to promote the new revolutionary music . On Lenins orders Theremin embarked on a concert tour around disease and hunger-ravaged, post-revolutionary Russia.The tour was followed by a concert series abroad in Germany, France, and England. Those tours however, were organized by the newly formed Soviet Secret Service GRU, for which Theremin had begun to work as an agent. After conquering Paris, the Royal Albert Hall, and Berlin, Theremins journey continued, logically, to America. He arrives in New York with his German friend and business manager Hans Goldberg. His mission is clear: to place Theremins inventions in the US industry and to receive US patents while at the same time infiltrating the nascent American air and electronic industries. It is Theremins time in the United States that constitutes the actual plot of the play. Recitals in Carnegie Hall, private performances for millionaires parties, and even the first stadium concerts, the biggest of which attracts more than 20 000 people!!! Instead of the originally planned two months, Theremin would remain in America for ten years. At its most basic level, Theremin is a story about the rise and fall of the worlds first electronic music band. But beyond this Theremin is a portrait of a controversial and a peculiar human being. It is a story of a man caught in the torrents of 20th century history, unable to be free in his calling, his actions, and his wants. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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