Performing Arts Graduate Student Reviews Polish Theatre Festival

Rem Myers

Rem Myers, a first-year Theatre Education graduate student, traveled to Poland in December as the representative of TheTheaterTimes.com to review the Boska Komedia Festival.

The Boska Komedia (Divine Comedy) Festival is an 11-year-old festival held annually in Krakow, Poland, to showcase “the most extensively discussed productions….reflecting the creative temperature and aspirations of Polish Theatre artists” of the previous year.

While in Poland, Myers saw 17 plays ranging from classic work, such as Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, to new experimental pieces.

The trip was supported by TheTheatreTimes.com, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw, and Emerson College.

Myers is a director, teacher, dramaturg, and journalist. He was based in San Francisco for several years, working primarily in new play development with companies such as the Cutting Ball Theater, Playwrights Foundation, and FaultLine Theater. Concurrently, he taught high schoolers and middle schoolers at the Urban School, and with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.

As a graduate student in Emerson’s Performing Arts Department, Myers is working on a thesis examining contemporary Polish theatre, Catholicism, and censorship.

Founded and run by Performing Arts Associate Professor Magda Romanska, TheTheatreTimes.com is a global theatre portal. Since its launch in November 2016, the site has published more than 2,500 articles covering theatre in 85 countries. In 2018, Romanska won the Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy from the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA.org) for the portal.