AND THE PLANETS ARE RAGING… Youth in tribute to Kory

director Anna Sroka-Hryń

performed by students of the A. Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw

Premiere 20 August 2021. contemporary theatre in Warsaw, Stage in Barak

Before the premiere of the musical play "And the planets are going crazy...", directed by Anna Sroka-Hryń, I talk to Maciej Dybowski, an actor in the play and a fifth-year student of musical theatre acting at the Theatre Academy in Warsaw.

Tomasz Ostrowski: Let's start from the beginning. At just 13 years old you started working intensively in dubbing.

Maciej Dybowski: It was.

What made you target dubbing so early on? The advantages of the voice-over?

I think it started even earlier. I have a musical family. They don't sing professionally, but as far as I can remember, I always had a guitar in my house. There were always keyboards. They always sang. They sang all the greatest hits that we still listen to today: the repertoire of Marila Rodovich, electric guitars, red guitars. This music has always been in me. I've never seen anything but football before. I said that apart from football, I would never do anything else in my life. I went to practice from Monday to Sunday, every day. I did it of my own free will, I really liked it. The transition was made thanks to my parents. First, I entered the workshop of the Music Academy under Pavel Podgorsky. Thanks to this academy, I went to an art camp and there met Asya Vengzhinovskaya, with whom we had a dubbing workshop. I immediately caught the ingenuity, I really liked it. The camp lasted a week. As soon as I returned to Warsaw, I received an invitation from Start Studio International Poland for a casting call. I won this casting, and there my collaboration with Asia Vengzhinovskaya began. At first it was a tiny video, but after about three or four days, I was approached from the same studio by another person, Anya Apostolakis. She invited me to a casting call. I already won the lead role there. So it happened and continues to this day.

You are involved in dubbing in many fields: film, series, animated films, computer games.

Yes in many fields, there are still radio plays, I have read an audiobook maybe once. In repertoire I'm rather fabulous.

Such success in dubbing indicates that you had good voice training and good diction before you started studying theatre.

Yes, I think I do, even though I am a man who is like a 'faflon' in everyday life because he doesn't want to. He doesn't open his mouth because what's the point. That's how it seemed at first. But when you have to go on stage or into the studio, it's different. Later on I started to pay attention to diction myself, which is very, very important.

Even before your studies, we met in 2016, and later in 2017, during rehearsals of SKRZYPKA NA DACHU and FOOTLOOSE by the Śródmiejski Teatr Muzyczny, a theatre operating at the Władysław Broniewski Youth Cultural Centre. The repertoire of this theatre includes world musicals. All musicals are directed by the theatre's artistic director Antoni Dietzius. He invites artistically talented young people to successive premieres. Unfortunately, very few spectators can experience the excellently prepared performances. The theatre can only afford to buy a School edition licence, allowing it to perform a maximum of six shows. The quality of the artistic preparation of the actors, vocals and choreography of the premieres makes it easier for young people to take their exams at art colleges, and the many months of preparation of the premieres (October to June) take place in an excellent atmosphere. For example, Monika Daukszo, currently a student at the Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, performed in both of the above premieres. You successfully auditioned for the Theatre Academy in Warsaw a month after the premiere of FOOTLOOSE. There are many such people. You also worked with Antoni Dietzius at the Municipal Theatre in Leszno and the Relax Theatre in Warsaw.

Yes, this is the play TAJEMNICA TOMKA SOWYERA, staged both in Leszno and Warsaw. The premiere in Leszno took place even before my studies. It went like this. There is such a great atmosphere in the Downtown Musical Theatre that I would love to play in more musical premieres there. You don't make any money there, but there's an energy there that can't be replicated in any professional theatre.

You can fall in love with these performances.

It's true. I regretted that I couldn't be at the performance of SPAMALOT, SINCE MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAAL (2018). I already had school and other commitments that prevented me from doing so.

I have been observing the changes that have been happening in recent years in theatre schools. It used to be that students were not allowed to work in theatres during their studies, now there is more tolerance. I currently see you in the repertoire of the Syrena Theatre in three plays.wiły.

It cost me a lot of work and earned trust among professors to agree to share professional theatre with studying at the Theatre Academy.

You meet your colleagues from the Theatre Academy on stage.

In the face of students who show a high degree of responsibility and fulfil their own commitments to the school, this regime restricting doing something outside the AT is relaxed.

This direction is correct, as stage practice and the opportunity to interact with the audience for the development of the actor are invaluable. It is also to be appreciated that repertory theatres are increasingly inviting Theatre Academy productions to their stages. In September, KLUB, directed by Weronika Szczawińska, will play at TR WARSZAWA. Theatre Academy productions are currently taking part in the 18th Singer's Warsaw Festival. Finally, the current premiere of the play A planeta szaleją... Młodzi w hołdzie Kora (And the Planets Go Crazy... Youth in Homage to Kora) is taking place on the stage of Teatr Współczesny in Warsaw. I think a lot of students are currently showing up on theatre stages outside the school walls.

That seems to be a lot. Rather, they are my colleagues from the musical theatre acting major. It's a matter of the fact that the Theatre Academy has been able to make a course that really prepares people for musical theatre in Poland, in normal professional theatres, which we've lacked for a very long time. In our country, for about five or seven years, musical theatre of the kind that is on the West End or Broadway has been born, but we are still many years behind them. They created the genre. They know perfectly well what is good and what is bad. We are learning from them and just trying to chase them.

Of the shows you are currently performing in, which do you value most because of your theatrical skills?

NEXT TO NORMAL at the Siren Theatre. I got the lead role of Gabe alternating with Piotr Janusz and Marcin French. I really like the role and I really appreciate the show itself. It is a huge musical event. There are six of us actors in the show and seven people in the musical band.

The show also features your fellow students: Weronika Bochat-Piotrowska, Marcin Franc, Michał Juraszek.

It's true.

We are back to where we are now, at the Contemporary Theatre - Stage in the Barracks, a production of 'And the planets are going mad...'. How did this performance come about?

It actually came to fruition two years ago. In my second year, in the summer semester, Professor Anna Sroka-Hryń became the tutor for the 'musical dialogue scenes' subject. Professor Sroka-Hryń had always dreamt of doing a performance with Maanam songs. We were also very much in favour. And so the adventure began. We worked on this exam, then it was a whole semester. Pandemic times got in our way a bit. We have only resumed work now. On Friday (20.08) we premiere this exam, which in its current version we can safely call a performance.

In terms of stage design, some press previews report that it is more of a concert than a dramatised theatrical performance.

I wouldn't call it that, because Ms Ania worked through the lyrics with us from the very beginning. Before we started singing them, we treated them like poems. We had to analyse them, interpret the whole text, which had to move us internally, evoke some kind of emotionality. Our performance is a staged form.

The title of the performance is taken from the title of the biographical book KORA, KORA. A PLANET DREAM by Kamil Sipowicz. Following this lead, I guess that the show, with its songs, their interpretation and their staging, leans into KORA Jackowska's biography.

Exactly so, although each actor has something of his own to show in his song. The show is based on Kora's lyrics, but the lyrics are reworked in terms of literature and arrangement. As it is with an actor, each text has to be run through itself. They are not one to one songs by Kora. They have a kind of dramaturgy, a precise choreography together. Ms Ania was our main choreographer. Most importantly, it was our joint project, to which we brought our ideas. Ms Ania had outlines, drawings, ideas in her head. Such images, but we also proposed a lot from ourselves, which made it look this way and not that way. We had very long discussions. It took a very long time before we went on stage to arrange the movement. At the beginning we mainly sat in a circle, everyone reading the text. We had to think about what the text was really about, and what it could be, what it evoked in me, what emotions. Then there was the musical layer, composed by Mateusz Dębski. Somewhere along the lines of the original chords, but stylistically it has nothing to do with rock. The band accompanying us consists of piano, double bass and harp. Would anyone have thought that a harp would suit Maanam? No, we didn't. It was such an assumption that when I listen to the harp in Maanam now it makes me hot.

At the Theatre Academy you are performing in yet another play directed by Anna Sroka-Hryń. You are performing in the play PRAWIEK I INNE CZASY based on the novel by Olga Tokarczuk.

This performance was my graduation diploma. Generally every year has two diplomas. I, on the other hand, had to give up the second one because I had a premiere at the Syrena Theatre. I wouldn't have reconciled it in time. I'm in RIGHT..., and I'm not in PEOPLE, PLACES and THINGS.

How would you rate your adventure at the Theatre Academy?

It has been four wonderful, albeit very difficult, years. It was a huge amount of work. I remember in my first year after the first two months I even felt like quitting the school. I found that it was not for me. After three months there was so much work that there was no time to think about whether it was for me or not. You had to work very hard. because the session was inexorably approaching and you had to show something. After those three months of dilemmas, here we are today. It passed very quickly. The pandemic caused a deceleration, we lost one semester of the third year. It was not some huge loss. They were wonderful years. I have had a wonderful year of colleagues. The important thing is that we are able to get along. We have an amazing, well-knit team that can be attractive to professional theatres. Directors can say: listen we can offer you to play this in our theatre. And we all agree. That shows that we are a very strong, motivated, passionate and energetic year. And I commend all these people. We are a group, but everyone is perfectly workshopped.

As casting calls usually precede casting in musical theatre, does this put a lot of strain on you?

I have noticed that there is now a trend to employ more and more people in drama and musical theatres who, in addition to their acting skills, are musically talented and well trained. You can count on one hand the theatres that do not have musical performances in their repertoire. There are expectations for an actor to have incredible talent and acting technique, but also to be able to sing. We see this in almost every performance. We are a musical theatre acting major and the Theatre Academy has also equipped us with a professional acting workshop, allowing us to find our way in both musical and dramatic repertoire. Of course, the current pandemic situation in the theatres - we hope temporary - has worsened the financial health of the theatres and limited our ability to hire for full-time positions. Casting for new premieres is not a problem for us.

School's over, now it's going to be writing your thesis. Do you have a topic chosen?

I don't have a theme yet. I am thinking about it and it will probably be related to the musical.

During your educational path, you also completed a post-secondary study: Academy of Film and Television, majoring in directing. Do you have a vision of working as a director on the horizon in the longer term?

Sometime in the future, maybe yes. I have taken a lot from this stage of training. However, I'm too young, I don't have the directing experience and the necessary listening ear among actors. For now, you have to collect this acting experience in order to become a good director afterwards.

Thank you very much for the interview. See you in future media rehearsals, both in musical and dramatic theatre.

Thank you very much and we'll see you at the A PLANETS RAGE performance....

 

AND THE PLANETS ARE RAGING…"Young in honor of Kora
Creators:
Directing Anna Sroka – Hryń
Lighting design Paulina Góral
Arrangement and piano Mateusz Dębski
Harp Alina Łapińska
Double bass Wojciech Gumiński

Cast:
Ada Dec, Natalia Stachyra, Karolina Piwosz, Maja Polka, Jagoda Jasnowska, Olga Lisiecka, Maciej Dybowski, Juliusz Godzina, Wojciech Melzer, Maciej Kozakoszczak, Tomasz Osica