The Puppet Theater in Poznań, established in 1945, has been changing its name in accordance with the evolution of its artistic pursuits.
1945-1954
In March 1945, the children's stage was organized by Halina Lubicz, an actress and initiator of efforts to create a theater for children and adolescents in Poznań during the occupation. She became the director of the Poznań Marionette Theater (from September 1 called the Municipal Marionette Theater), which - by authorization of the mayor of Poznań - was given a seat in a hall at 8 Św. Marcin Street. The premiere of The Forest Singer by Henryk Żuchowski, directed by Halina Lubicz, on April 17, 1945, marked the beginning of the first - heroic - period of the Poznań puppet stage, focused on building the repertoire, identifying artistic goals, working out the form and means of creative expression, and defining the audience (children and the youth).
The transformation of the theater's formula, and the corresponding increased role of the actor in the performances, led to the adoption of the name Actor and Puppet Theater starting with the 1946/1947 season.
1954-1960
The new character of the stage stemmed from the artistic direction of Joanna Piekarska. Working together with Irena Pikiel - the theater's artistic director and stage designer - and with Janina Morawska - the literary director and children’s playwright – Joanna Piekarska fully restored the theater's character as a puppet stage. She introduced Polish classics into the repertoire (Mickiewicz, Leśmian, Gałczyński, Schiller), forged a clear mission statement, made the „Marcinek” State Puppet and Actor Theater (name since 1958) a major presence at the National Festival of Puppet Theaters in Warszawa and led to first performances abroad (Prague, Liberec).
1960-1980
In the 1960/61 season, the management of the theater and its artistic direction was taken up by Leokadia Serafinowicz - actress, stage designer, stage director, animation filmmaker, author of theatrical adaptations and movie scripts. This is how she defined the theater's scope of activities:
We want to provoke the child to try and understand the content and perceive experiences not through all-explaining words, but by solving the riddle of a gesture or situation. The children’s theater is obliged to familiarize young spectators with the language of art, develop their artistic sensitivity, enrich their imagination. (...) I strongly believe that our repertoire should include works of high-profile writers, that the plays should be fresh and modern, to attract not only young people, but also adults. For only the adult section of society can create the right working conditions for a child.
Together with the director / actor / educator Wojciech Wieczorkiewicz and with Jan Berdyszak - painter, sculptor, and stage designer - she created a fully artistically viable theater for children. The Poznań scene became a place for interesting creative explorations and a center of studies on the essence of puppet theater. The natural consequence of breaking with the stereotypes regarding children’s theater and with the prevailing aesthetics was an effort to find a contemporary stage language, and new means of artistic expression, resonating with current themes. Leokadia Serafinowicz made the visual arts a structural component of the performance. The form - through the use of sign, abbreviation, metaphor - became a carrier of ambiguous meanings. Questions about the actual expectations of children and adult audiences resulted in a repertoire which – apart from fairy tale classics – included contemporary plays (works by Krystyna Miłobędzka), Polish drama pieces (Wanda by Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Stanisław Wyspiański's Wesele, or Mątwa and Szalona lokomotywa by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz) and foreign plays (Vladimir Mayakovsky's Łaźnia, Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Sobowtór). A new formula of musical performance was developed - a puppet opera, derived from the tradition of Polish folklore, complete with a modern form of staging (O Kasi, co gąski zgubiła, Lajkonik, Koziołki z wieży ratuszowej). The year 1964, driven by the search for a new formula for puppet theater, gave rise to Konfrontacje - Review of Contemporary Polish Puppet Plays.
The theater presented its productions in dozens of countries around the world, winning prestigious awards at international festivals and reviews.
1980-1989
The 1980s saw a change in artistic direction (Antoni Kończal became general director in 1980), a variety of events, and a search for a new style and program. The repertoire at that time comprised classical fairy tales existing side by side with artistic and musical workshop activities and interesting contemporary drama debuts (Małgorzata Jokiel's Wings, Andrzej Maleszka's Ballada o Kasi i drzewie).
1989-2014
With Janusz Ryl-Krystianowski taking over the seat of director in the 1989/1990 season, the stage adopted the name Theater of Animation, becoming one of the most interesting puppet theaters in Poland, characterized by its unique aesthetics. The profile of the Theater - a theater of actors, puppets and objects - was shaped in these years primarily by the directorial achievements of its artistic director, whose productions are distinguished by their own recognizable style.
The theater has obligations: to tradition - the cultural heritage of fairy tales; to the changing world in which the child lives; and to itself - it must seek new means of expression and must be attractive to its audience – as stated by Janusz Ryl-Krystianowski.
Individual and group awards won at prestigious festivals, Attests - awarded by the Polish Center of the International Association of Theaters for Children and Young People ASSITEJ, awards in the Competition for Staging Polish Contemporary Art; all of these are clear proof of the high artistic level of the Poznań stage, whose success has been earned by a professional, efficient acting team. But the most important audience of the Theater are the children and teenagers. The entire repertoire was selected with them in mind: both fairy tale classics as well as contemporary plays. Good literature and interesting performances given by harmoniously collaborating artists confirm that the audience was treated seriously, as a partner.The Theater develops imagination, independent thinking, shapes the aesthetic taste. It provides a good background for young people open to the modern world, who understand its dynamics and participate fully in European culture.
Since 2003, the theater has organized the biennial International Festival of Contemporary Plays for Children and the Youth, KON-TEKSTY.
2014-2017
From February 2014 to August 2017, the director of the Theater of Animation was Marek Waszkiel, Ph.D., professor at the Academy of Theater in Warsaw - theater historian, critic, educator. During his directorship the Theater staged many productions with international artists. These were directed by, among others: Neville Tranter ("Molière," 2015), Duda Paiva ("Stories from Oblivion," 2016), Tsubame Kusunoki ("Seasons," 2016), Eric Bass ("Blackbirds," 2016), Janni Younge ("Up," 2017) and Joan Baixas ("Diablo!", 2017). Following the lead of Marek Waszkiel, artists working at the Theater of Animation strongly emphasize the complex and rich theater of form in their explorations, focusing on various animation techniques and emphasizing the skills of the animator.
In these years, the Theater of Animation has been a guest at prestigious festivals abroad, giving performances in Canada, Egypt, Japan, China, Russia, Lithuania and Romania, among others.
In 2014, Waszkiel appoints a new position at the theater, that of a playwright. It is assumed by Malina Prześluga - one of the most popular contemporary playwrights, repeatedly recognized both for her works aimed at the children and those for adult audiences. What distinguishes the activities of the Theater of Animation from 2014 to 2017 is the formal diversity of performances, in which the animators are always in the foreground, and the final shape of the script is influenced by the entire rehearsal process.
2017...
Since September 2017, the director of the Theater of Animation has been Dr. Piotr Klimek, a lecturer at the University of Szczecin and the Academy of Arts in Szczecin, a multi-instrumentalist, composer and music producer.
Bold formal explorations combined with the inclusion of contemporary Polish drama and reinterpretations of classical texts and broadly understood motifs of popular culture remain the key directions of the development of the Poznań scene. We are seeing an increase in the importance of theater education addressed to all audience groups: from children to parents and teachers. Particularly noteworthy are the artistic experiments aimed at improving the accessibility of Animation Theater's performances: be it sensory plays for the visually impaired ("plays to watch with your ears," which employ a binaural microphone designed specifically for this purpose) or the fact that there are now more productions addressed to the youngest viewers than ever before. In addition, in 2020 and 2021 - due to the COVID 19 pandemic - the theater launched and developed a VOD platform, where you can watch specially created recordings of performances. Since 2017, the Theater of Animation has gradually expanded its activities outside the walls of the institution, presenting performances on the Mobile Stage in places where children are normally excluded from participation in culture (hospitals, hospices, impoverished neighborhoods of the city) and during numerous outdoor events.
An increasingly important aspect of the Poznań scene’s activities is participation in prestigious international projects subsidized by organizations dedicated to the world's youngest citizens (such as Small Size and UNICEF).