Editing Theatre of Poland (section)

== Festivals ==
International festivals are a particular element of Polish theatre life, occasions to allow the artistic achievements of East and West to confront each other. To this end, there are such festivals as "Contact," taking place annually in [[Toruń]], and "Dialogue," organised biannually in autumn in Wrocław, in turn with Kraków's "Dedications" (October) and Warsaw's "Meetings" (November). Aside from these, the most interesting events are "Theatrical Confrontations" in [[Lublin]] (October), the open-air "Malta" festival in Poznań (June), Kraków's "Ballet in Spring" and the Puppet Theatre Biennial in [[Bielsko-Biała]].

One world-famous person who had links with 20th-century Polish theatre and was [[Pope John Paul II]]. His interest in theatre dated back to his secondary school years in [[Wadowice]], where the teenage Karol Wojtyła worked in the school theatre. During the Second World War, he co-founded, with his old teacher Mieczysław Kotlarczyk, the [[Underground education in Poland during World War II|underground]] Rhapsodic Theatre, a group cultivating the Romantic tradition of live poetry. After the war, as a priest, he supported the group and was also its critic, publishing reviews of its performances. Within his literary work, John Paul II also has written a number of dramas, the best-known of which are ''Our God's Brother'' and ''The Jeweller's Shop''.