Dissident Power in Havel’s Vaněk (CZECH)
Excerpts from Czech plays that use Havel's character, Vaněk, originally created as a stand-in for himself (a dissident playwright) during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia. The character was then adapted by numerous other Czech dissident playwrights such as Pavel Landovsky and Pavel Kohout. The excerpts will be accompanied by a discussion with Carol Strong, who recently wrote a book about the character and its enduring significance.
Excerpts directed by Edward Einhorn
90 minutes including discussion
Presented in cooperation with Untitled Theater Company No. 61
About
Carol Strong (speaker) is the author of The Dissident Politics in Václav Havel’s Vanek Plays: Who Is Ferdinand Vanek Anyway? She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas at Monticello; she is also concurrently an Honorary Fellow at the Contemporary Europe Research Centre at the University of Melbourne (Australia). She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Melbourne.
Edward Einhorn is a playwright, director, translator, librettist, theater journalist, and novelist. He is the Artistic Director of both Untitled Theater Company No.61 and the Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival. In 2006, he curated the Václav Havel Festival, which included all of Havel’s work, at multiple theaters throughout New York City, with Havel in attendance. Since then some of his work includes Cabaret in Captivity, songs and sketches from Terezin, written during the Holocaust performed at multiple venues in New York, London, ans Washington DC; The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, which received at Critics Pick from The New York Times chief reviewer Jesse Green, performed in at HERE in New York and Off-West End at The Jermyn Street Theatre in London; The Pig, or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig, adapted from the work by Václav Havel and Vladimír Morávek, which played at The New Ohio and 3LD Theatres in New York and received a New York Times and Village Voice Critics Pick; The Velvet Oratorio, an opera-theater production following Havel’s character Vaněk through the Velvet Revolution, which played at Lincoln Center’s Walter Bruno Theatre and Bohemian National Hall; and directing The Last Cyclist, a play by Karel Švenk written in Terezin, which performed at La MaMa and was also shown on PBS affiliate WNET as part of their Theater Close Up series.
Part of Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival honoring Václav Havel, produced by the Vaclav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.
ABOUT THE 2025 REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL
Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival, honoring Václav Havel, is a showcase of contemporary European theater organized each year in New York City. Conceived in 2017 as a shared endeavor of the Václav Havel Center (VHC) and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), the festival honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident and political thinker Vaclav Havel.
Each edition of Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival addresses current sociopolitical trends in Central and Eastern Europe, offering New York audiences a unique opportunity to witness the region’s theatrical zeitgeist.
The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The festival is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.