Power Play
-
Direction
Samara Hersch
-
Dramaturgy, curation
Marta Keil
-
Dramaturgy, script
Szymon Adamczak
-
Premiere
24 April 2026
-
Tickets
Regular ticket: 70 PLN
Concessionary ticket: 50 PLN
Cast
About performance
If we are lucky, we are born queens or kings, with adults responding to our every gesture. We discover our power through crying, screaming, or an endearing smile; yet as we grow older, sooner or later we begin to experience our own powerlessness in the world around us, both near and far.
“Power Play” is a work made by children and adults that is not about childhood. Instead it explores the performativity and slipperiness of adulthood. In this encounter, children share the stage with the actors of TR Warszawa. They taste power; delight in its sweet seduction and confront its fragility, terror and ultimate betrayal. The script departs from improvisations between the cast and takes inspiration from “King Matt the First” — a groundbreaking children’s novel by Janusz Korczak, where a ten-year-old boy suddenly becomes king and attempts to correct the mistakes of adults.
At a time when political leaders are increasingly behaving like “children”, what does it mean to rethink the binaries between the child and the grown-up? “Power Play” asks: how is raising a child any different from raising a society? How do we allow children to remain “innocent and free” and who pays the price for this freedom? And, if “adulthood” is the greatest performance of all, then who better to learn from than a cast of professional adult actors?
Creators
cast: Dobromir Dymecki, Monika Frajczyk, Maria Maj, Tomek Tyndyk and children (names to be added soon)
concept and direction: Samara Hersch
dramaturgy, curation: Marta Keil
dramaturgy, script: Szymon Adamczak
set design and costumes: Marta Szypulska
set design and costumes collaboration: Natalia Dziarczykowska
associate artist and video direction: Solomon Thomas
lighting design: Jędrzej Jęcikowski
music: Karol Nepelski
concept collaboration: Aaron Orzech
assistant director: Wojciech Sobolewski
educational support during the process: Katarzyna Batarowska
stage manager: Małgorzata Krawczyk
head of production: Magda Igielska
trial translation: Katarzyna Kania
The performance is created within the program line “Who does the theatre belong to?”, curated by Marta Keil.
Who does theatre belong to?
Marta Keil’s curatorial programme (2025-2028)
Theatres, like other art institutions, seem particularly depleted today – and so their employees and artists are. There is never enough time and space for what is one of the fundamental tasks of a public art institution: creating conditions for reinventing (and practising) social relations. We do not seem to have the strength to think beyond the horizon of the crisis, beyond the need to chase the next deadline, solve the current problem and anticipate the next one. In a state of emergency and exhaustion, it is difficult to find the time and energy to experiment with imagination.
But imagining public theatre anew is only possible when it is done collectively. What would happen if we decided to share the process of shaping an art institution with the ones whose voices are not (yet) audible in public debate? How would thinking about theatre change if, for example, we handed over its programming to teenagers for a while?
Who does theatre belong to? is a curatorial programme prepared by Marta Keil, a dramaturge and curator who has been associated with Warsaw for many years and currently lives and works in the Netherlands and Belgium. The programme will broaden the concept of public theatre and explore institutional dramaturgies, asking who the theatre institution actually belongs to, with whom it shares its space and resources, and who has the privilege of deciding its shape.
Photos from the workshop: Iga Staszewska
Co-financed by the funds of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state special-purpose fund.
Programme name: Theatre
Project title: “Power Play”, directed by Samara Hersch
Date of agreement: 10 October 2025
Amount of funding: 199,000
Total project value: 383,710
