Baj Pomorski Theatre
History The Baj Pomorski Theatre was started by Irena Pikiel-Samorewiczowa – an artist, painter, and repatriate from Vilnius who came to Bydgoszcz in April 1945, with a document from The Ministry of Arts and Culture entitling her to organize the first puppet theatre in Pomerania. It was supposed to be a younger brother of Warsaw's Baj Theater, hence the name Baj Pomorski. The Bydgoszcz theatre was situated in the city's slaughterhouse, which had functioned as a German marionette theatre during Nazi occupation. On October 28, 1945, it performed its premiere for children – Ewa Szelburg-Zarembina's Little Wandering Taylor. However, the conditions of Bydgoszcz’s stage did not meet the needs of the young puppet theatre, so Pikiel accepted the proposal to move the headquarters of Baj Pomorski to Toruń. As early as April 1946, the Theatre had been granted a building at 9 Piernikarska Street, which had previously belonged to the German Castle Theatre during the war. The first actors of Baj Pomorski were students from The University of Nicholas Copernicus who took part in theatrical clinics and unearthed the arcana of puppet animation. The theatre had humble equipment at its disposal, yet it was actively involved in on-the-road performances throughout Poland. In 1947, Joanna Piekarska, an artist and director, became the theatre's artistic manager. She directed the performance entitled She-Cat's House which received 3rd prize at the 1st Festival of Russian and Soviet Plays in Warsaw in 1950. This achievement, as well as the theatre's extensive activity, contributed to the nationalization of Toruń's puppet stage. Directors From then on the rules of play planning and selection, mandated within a cultural policy, had to be consistently obeyed. The following directors of the theatre were Stanisław Stapf (1950–1960), Leszek Śmigielski (1960–1972), Tadeusz Petrykowski was an artistic director (1972–1979), at that time the managing directors were: Eugeniusz Synak (1972-1976), Karol Mroziński (1976-1979), Konrad Szachnowski (1979–1980), Antoni Słociński (1980–1988), Krzysztof Arciszewski (1988–1992), Wojciech Olejnik (1992–1993), Czesław Sieńko (1993–2003). Zbigniew Lisowski has been Baj Pomorski's director since August 1, 2003. Theatre in 1960–90 All the directors have left their ineffaceable expressions upon Toruń's puppet stage. It was when Stapf was the theatre's acting director that the days of Baj Pomorski's artistic adolescence occurred. He was the one responsible for helping modernize the theatre, making it into one of the best equipped stages in Poland; he displayed a premiere for adults (the first of its kind for the theatre – a Polish preview puppet show of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; he initiated the North Poland Puppet Theater Festival held in Toruń – Pomerania's first event of this caliber. During the Sixties, under Śmigielski's management, a further change was brought about in Baj Pomorski's image, from that of a traditional puppet stage to one of a theatre seeking new forms of expression, open to Toruń's artistic life. It was during this time that the largest numbers of preview shows within the history of the theatre were staged; ambitious spectacles (influenced by traditional folk theatre) were