“Autocorrection” is a performance which was created as the final of the TiSz (theatre and school) project, in cooperation between the pedagogy department of TR Warszawa and the Lisa Kula Secondary School.

“Autocorrection” is another, after “We are the future!” (Teatr Nowy Proxima in Krakow), theatre project in which Jakub Skrzywanek, together with other artists (Magda Mosiewicz, Aleksandr Prowaliński, Anna Axer Fijałkowska), invited high school and university students entering adulthood – Amelia, Jagoda, Kaja, Natalia, Ostap, Aleks and Zosia – to co-create a performance. This time, after a period of almost a year’s lockdown due to forced confinement at home and remote education, they looked at the first weeks of “returning to normality”. The question is, is any return still possible? How do those who spent most of their adolescence confined to their homes perceive ‘normality’? What do they need, what are their fears, and can theatre in any way help them to overcome all that has accumulated in recent months? What do they want to say at a time when they have been able to observe very closely the reality around them and the system of which they are a part? What do they need to hear, if most of the things we would like to say to adults would start with a long and unrestrained scream?

“Autocorrection” is a renewed attempt to give the theatre scene back to young adults, perhaps more than ever needed to publicly listen to those who say – “Nobody cared about us!”. In a joint workshop they will try to correct what they cannot accept. To see if the change they utter in the theatre space, can change anything more.

Jakub Skrzywanek is a director, author, creator of performance installations and, from January 2021, programme curator at the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin. He collaborates with the most important Polish theatres, including Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw, Teatr Polski in Poznan, Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin, and the unique Teatr21. Since his debut with the play “Cynkowi Chłopcy” at the Dramatyczny Theatre in Wałbrzych (the best debut of the 2015/16 season), his subsequent plays have been constantly featured at the most important Polish festivals and have been at the top of rankings prepared by the most important Polish critics. As part of the celebrations of the Anti-Fascist Year, he launched “Triptych on Violence”, which opened “Mein Kampf” prepared at Teatr Powszechny. The performance resonated not only in Poland, but also abroad, where it was very positively received by the Financial Times, New York Times, Der Freitag, Jerusalem Post and L’Espresso, among others. After the second part of the “Triptych”, which was “Kaspar Hauser” (Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin), work began on the final part – “The Corpse Burner” – prepared for the Romanian Tineretului Piatra Neamt Theatre, which was interrupted by the development of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his work, apart from artistic activity, Skrzywanek emphasises social, educational and pedagogical activities. He is the author of plays for children and young people and conducts workshops focusing on work with groups which are often forgotten by theatre. He uses the space of the theatre and the stage as a platform for expression for all minorities and excluded groups. This is how the first podcast series prepared with Teraz Poliż! the first Polish podcast series about the fate of a non-heteronormative family “Famila”, as well as a documentary performance created with young people “We are the future!”, awarded at the international Korczak festival, or a story of child refugees from war zones “When my dad turned into a bush”. (Dramatyczny Theatre in Wałbrzych). Jakub Skrzywanek was twice a scholarship holder of the scholarship of the President of the City of Wrocław and of the “Laboratory of New Theatre” of the New Theatre in Kraków, as part of which he prepared the play “We are the future!”

Project co-financed by the City of Warsaw