CV - Tibor Solténszky
Board member of Interplay Hungary

Born in 1953 in Eastern Hungary. He first appeared on stage in the sixties, in his high school in Debrecen. He then went to Szeged, Southern Hungary for university studies, where he began to study law. He soon changed his mind - and became an actor of the University Theatre of Szeged. That group took part in many of the major avant-garde, experimental festivals of the period (early seventies) like Wroclav, Lódz (PL), Beograd, Zagreb (YU), Parma (I), Villach (A) etc. He took part in workshops in the Theatre Laboratory of Jerzy Grotowski, and that of Józef Szajna. For some years he was conducting actors' training not only inside the company but also throughout Hungary.

He became the dramaturg (script editor) of the Drama Department of the Hungarian Radio in 1982, since then he has done about two hundred, mainly contemporary plays. He is active in stage productions, too, as a dramaturg, literary advisor. As such he worked nation-wide (Eger, Miskolc, Budapest) and abroad, too (with Hungarian companies in Slovakia and Yugoslavia) and in Portland, Oregon, with the Artist Repertory Theatre.

He is the deputy chairman of the Guild of the Hungarian Theatre Dramaturgs. He has long been the chairman of the National Federation of Free Theatres, Puppeteers, and Drama Teachers. He is the publisher of a theatre periodical called Player. He is among the founders of the most prestigious new writing workshop in Hungary, the Open Forum.

He himself writes for radio and stage, often for children. Some of his works are still running on stages in Budapest (Joseph in Kava Theatre, Transit Lounge in Panboro Movement Theatre, Toldi in Jibraki Theatre), Sweet Ann (in Komarno, Slovakia). In the recent years he directed radio plays, too, winning the Best Director's Work 2001 award in Hungarian Radio. His work was nominated for the Prix Italia and Prix Europa prizes in 2000.

He is a member of several international networks, like the Radio Drama Project Group of the European Broadcasting Union, the Interplay, the ITI, aita/iata and others. He was the co-ordinator of two training/placement programmes of the Royal National Theatre of London: Seeding A Network and Branching Out for theatre practitioners and drama teachers. A founding partner and Central European agent of the Liverpool, UK based cultural agency, Brouhaha International. A trainer/facilitator of some cultural programmes of the King Baudouin Foundation for Central and Eastern Europe (Estonia, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia).