Grotowski, Jerzy (yĕ`zhĭ grôtôf`skē), 1933–99, Polish stage director and theatrical theorist. Grotowski was founder and director of the small but influential Polish Laboratory Theatre (1959). He propounded a "poor theatre," which eliminates all nonessentials, i.e., costumes, sound effects, makeup, sets, lighting, and strictly defined playing area, in an effort to redefine the relation between actors and the audience. Late in his career (1986) he opened the Workcenter in the village of Pontedera, Italy, where his ideas about theater are still explored, actors are trained in his methods, and an abstract song and movement composition called Action is frequently performed.

Bibliography

See his Towards a Poor Theatre (tr. 1968); studies by T. Burzynski and Z. Osinski (tr. 1979), T. Richards (1995), and L. Wolford (1996); L. Wolford and R. Schechner, ed., The Grotowski Sourcebook (1997).

Grotowski, Jerzy

(born Aug. 11, 1933, Rzeszów, Pol.—died Jan. 14, 1999, Pontedera, Italy) Polish-born U.S. stage director. He joined the Polish Laboratory Theatre of Wroclaw in 1959 and founded a permanent company in 1965. The Laboratory Theatre made its U.S. debut with Akropolis (1969); it was followed by Undertaking Mountain (1977) and Undertaking Earth (1977–78), by which time Grotowski was living mostly in the U.S. Known as an avant-garde theorist, he sought to create dramatic tension by setting up emotional confrontations between audience and actors. His book Towards a Poor Theater (1968) emphasized the centrality of the actor and advocated minimal stage sets. He influenced U.S. experimental theatre movements, notably the Living Theatre.