Lang Michal

He started his career as a stagehand in the Těšín Theatre. After having graduated from DAMU, he and his classmates got an offer to leave for the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem, where he staged The Gamblers, for instance. He worked as a director in many other theatres, such as Labyrint Theatre (now Švandovo Theatre at Smíchov), where he staged S. I. Witkiewicz’s The Mother (1996); he directed Rowley’s and Middleton’s play The Changeling (1999) at the Pod Palmovkou Theatre; his productions of T. Lett’s Killer Joe (1996) and W. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (1997) were successfully staged in the Drama Club in Prague, he also worked for the Celetná Theatre. The contract with the Švandovo Theatre in Smíchov in 2002-2010 was important for Michal Lang, he directed a few productions that drew attention of both audience and professional critics - Molièrs School for Wives (2005), Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya etc. Lang’s own productions premiered there as well: Dávníkové (2008) and a theatre adaptation of Radka Denemarková’s Money from Hitler (2010). He has been a director in the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, Aréna Theatre, and a guest director in the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice, Moravian Theatre Olomouc, Horácko Theatre Jihlava. He has also worked with actors abroad – Teatr H. Modrzejewskiej w Legnicy in Poland saw John Ford’s comedy ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1999) and he directed Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine (2007) at Los Angeles Loyola Marymount University Theatre. He was the artistic director of drama at the F. X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec. Since 2013 he has been the director and artistic director of the Pod Palmovkou Theatre. He has directed Blood Wedding (2013), Othello (2014), The Kindly Ones (2016), Shakespeare in Love (2017), The Žítková Goddesses (2018), A Year in a Village (2019), Happy Chicken CZ – Poultry Farm (2019), Taming of the Shrew (2021).

He has been a member of several rock bands and composes music for many of his productions.

He also initiated the foundation of PALM-OFF FEST, the meeting of Central European theatres at Palmovka.

“It is the core of the production, which director Michal Lang – inspired by Preissová’s text – made the place of making decisions about life with one’s behavior. Concentrating on the basic quality demanded actors’ effort to fulfil the inner interest and lead to the solid, unbroken and rich contours avoiding stylization and artificiality, but not an effective theatre gesture […]“
Jan Císař, Lidové noviny