Meeting with Jerzy Zelnik

Meeting with Jerzy Zelnik

October 19th (Sunday) 1 PM  / Stage in Palace

Jerzy Zelnik – an actor and director, graduate of the State Higher School of Theatre in Warsaw. Between 1968 and 2005 he collaborated as an actor with many Polish stages, among them: the Stary Theatre in Kraków, the Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, the Powszechny Theatre in Łódź, the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, and the Studio Theatre in Warsaw.

He made his debut in the title role of Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s film Pharaoh (1966), which brought him international acclaim. Since then, he has appeared in over fifty film and television roles and has performed on numerous theatre stages in Poland and abroad.

Among his more significant roles one should mention: the title character in Mindowe by Juliusz Słowacki, Banco in Macbett by Eugène Ionesco, Nechlyudov in Resurrection and Prince Bolkonsky in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Razumov in Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad, Jason in Medea by Euripides, Claudius in Hamlet, Trigorin in The Seagull and Ivanov in Ivanov by Anton Chekhov. He also appeared as Macbeth in a production he directed himself at the Dramatic Theatre in Białystok in 2002.

As Artistic Director of the New Theatre in Łódź (2005–2008), he directed Heinrich von Kleist’s The Broken Jug and Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves, and also played Don Juan, the title role in Molière’s play. He is also active as a television and film actor.

In television series and in the Television Theatre he played, among others: Dr. Murek in the series of that title, King Sigismund Augustus in the series Queen Bona, the Count in The Un-Divine Comedy by Zygmunt Krasiński, and Herod in The Nativity Play by Leon Schiller. His credits also include several dozen feature films: Pharaoh Ramesses XIII/Lycon in Pharaoh, Jan “Kapucyn” in The Scorpion, the Virgin and the Archer, Łukasz Niepołomski in The Story of Sin, Sigismund Augustus in Epitaph for a Princess Radziwiłł, Count Moritz in Cheat. In March 2019, he directed Waldemar Łysiak’s The Price for Television Theatre.

In 1997 he was awarded the badge of Distinguished Cultural Activist. In 2006 he received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. In 2017 he was awarded the Gold Medal “Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.”

fot. Marcin Butryn