Petr Forman
stage direction

He was born in 1964. Back when studying puppetry at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, Petr became involved in street theatre and alongside his brother Matěj performed as a member of the Váňa family at theatre fairs on Prague’s Střelecký Island. Subsequently, they performed together at the Tůjů theatre and went on to establish the Forman Brothers Theatre (DBF). With this troupe of theatre nomads they made successful tours of Europe, as well as the USA and Mexico. In DBF Petr has worked as an actor, puppeteer and stage director. Perhaps the Theatre’s most successful staging is the puppet Baroque Opera (1992), performed on several hundred occasions. Ensuing were Le Joungleur de Notre-Dame (1993), Sedlák, čert a bába (The Peasant, Devil and Crone, 1994) and The Bartered Bride (1996). These relatively small projects were followed by three significantly more demanding ones: Nachové plachty (Purple Sails, 2000), performed on a barge converted into a floating theatre; Philip Glass’s opera La Belle et la Bête (2003), staged in the historical building of Prague’s National Theatre; and Klapzubova jedenáctka (Klapzuba’s Eleven, 2005), produced in the Minor theatre. An individual chapter is his aged cooperation with the French Cabaret Théatre Dromesko on a touring performance La Baraque - La Baraque which he and his brother Matej have been returning to for years (1997-2008). The latest author´s project of Forman Brothers Theatre, which the brothers have been touring with round Europe and which was awarded with one of the most prestigious theatre prizes in the Czech Republic (Alfred Radok Prize for the best production of the year 2008) is called Obludárium. This year the Forman brothers, also under Petr´s direction, have staged Dvořák´s opera Ubohá Rusalka bledá (Poor pale Rusalka) in the Husa na provázku Theatre in Brno (March 2009). In addition to his theatre work, Petr often casts in film and TV roles. After acting as a child in the trilogy directed by J. Papoušek Ecce Homo Homolka (1969), Hogo – fogo Homolka (1970) and Homolka a tobolka (1972), he appeared in the principal part in the film directed by Z. Tyc – Vojtěch, řečený sirotek (Vojtěch, called Orphan Vojtěch, 1990). It was followed by J. Svěrák´s film Akumulátor (Accumulator, 1994), Barokní opera (Baroque Opera, 1997, dir. M. Janek), Vaterland – lovecký deník (Vaterland – A Hunting Diary, dir. D. Jařab, 2004), Horem pádem (Up and Down, 2004, dir. J. Hřebejk), Kousek nebe (A Little Piece of Heaven, 2005, dir. P. Nikolaev) and U mě dobrý (I Am All Good, 2008, dir. J. Hřebejk); in minor roles he appeared in Mazaný Filip (Smart Philip, 2003, dir. V. Marhoul), or in the TV serials Zdivočelá země (A Land Gone Wild, 1997, dir. H. Bočan) and Poslední sezóna (The Last Season, 2006, dir. H. Bočan).