CED Talks: Women Directors

CED Talks: Women Directors, in collaboration with the Theatre World Brno 2026 festival, will take place on May 22 at 5:30 p.m. at the CED Cellar Stage in Brno. The discussion will be held in Czech without translation. It will be moderated by dramaturg Jakub Molnár.

How much space do women actually have in Czech theater, and how much of it do they have to fight for? Are disparities in pay (the so-called pay gap) and job opportunities merely a relic of the past, or a living reality of today’s theater scene? And what is the value of a career if it is to be pursued alongside parenthood, caregiving, and life itself?

This CED Talks discussion builds on the project DVACETjedna by author, performer, and director Miřenka Čechová, which connects the personal testimonies of twenty female directors with broader social commentary and explores the status of women in the arts. The production is followed indirectly by Nela Winkler’s sociological research Women in Czech Theater and Linda Arbanová’s documentary film mapping the experiences of the collaborating directors. What do these testimonies reveal about the state of contemporary theater? And is Czech theater truly an equal environment—or merely an environment that likes to see itself that way?

Guests Miřenka Čechová, Nela Winkler, and Anna Davidová will join the moderator Jakub Molnár in sharing insights from their professional experience, focusing on identifying opportunities that could pave the way for positive change.

Miřenka Čechová

Performer, choreographer, director, and writer, currently one of the most prominent figures in experimental dance and physical theater, active both in the Czech Republic and abroad. During her studies, she received a prestigious Fulbright scholarship for research and teaching at American University in Washington, D.C., where she established a new program in physical theater. As a performer, she has more than twenty full-length productions to her credit, many of which—mostly original works—have won major international awards (e.g., The Best of Contemporary Dance 2012 by The Washington Post, the Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Best Overseas Production at the International Arts Festival in South Africa, Best of Fringe at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, and many others). As a director and choreographer, she has created more than fifteen full-length productions, often in international co-productions, such as Sniper’s Lake (in co-production with Baerum Kulturhus in Norway), Krevety á la Indigo (supported by a residency at Schloss Bröllin in Germany and in another version for Dixon Place, NYC), FAiTH (supported by a residency at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C.), Vernisáž (produced by New Music Theater in Washington, D.C.), and Vivisectic (at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn and at Gibney Dance, New York). She has also directed several operas, including the production Opera and the French Revolution, for which she was commissioned by the American Baroque orchestra Opera Lafayette and which was performed at the Rose Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York and at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Based on her English-Czech fictional documentary Miss America (published by wo-men), she created a one-woman show of the same name, for which she was nominated for a Thálie Award, and for her second book, Baletky (Paseka), she received two nominations: for the European Union Prize for Literature and the Divadelní noviny Award for publishing achievement. As an academic, she has taught and lectured at several American universities (American University in Washington, D.C., the University of Tampa in Florida, Stephens College in Missouri, and she regularly works at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania as a choreographer and instructor of creative dance). She is a co-founder of the theater groups Spitfire Company (with P. Boháč) and Tantehorse (with R. Vizváry) and the international festival Nultý bod. Recently, she has been focusing heavily on documentary dance theater (docu-dance), most recently the series Invisible about women artists; she curates the dance activism projects Emergency Dances and teaches the educational project Tantelab, which bridges the gap between the end of studies and the start of young creators’ professional careers. Her latest book, Co já? Co ty? is among the broader nominees for the Magnesia Litera Award.

Kamila Polívková

Theater director, set designer, and costume designer. She has created costumes and set designs for more than a hundred Czech and international productions, many of which have won numerous awards and been performed at major international festivals and venues. From 2004 to 2012, she worked at the Prague Chamber Theater (Divadlo Komedie) under the direction of Dušan D. Pařízek, with whom she regularly collaborates in German-speaking countries (Salzburger Festspiele, Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Burgtheater Wien, Wiener Festwochen, and others). She made her directorial debut in 2009 at the Prague Chamber Theater with her own dramatization of Thomas Brussig’s novel Heroes Like Us, which premiered at Riverside Studios in London; from 2021 to 2022, she served as resident director at Prague’s Studio Hrdinů (The Day of the Oprichnik, The Actor and the Carpenter Majer Speaks on the State of His Homeland, etc.), where, among other things, she realized two international Czech-Icelandic theater projects (Skugga Baldur, Moonstone) in collaboration with actress Tereza Hofová; these premiered in Iceland in collaboration with the Art Museum Reykjavík (Hafnarhús) and the Tjarnarbíó Center for Contemporary Performing Arts. At the Schauspielhaus Zürich, she staged Darja Stocker’s play Precious for the international Transit Zürich festival. She has directed at the National Theater in Brno, the National Theater in Prague, and the Slovak National Theater in Bratislava, and regularly collaborates with HaDivadlo in Brno (Macocha, First Ladies, The Wall) and Divadlo X10 in Prague (Vyhnanství, Bytost). In the 2025/26 season, her ongoing collaboration with Divadlo v Dlouhé began with a theatrical adaptation of the novel The Vegetarian by Korean author Han Kang. Her productions have been presented at prestigious festivals in the Czech Republic and abroad (e.g., Radar OST at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Mülheimer Theatertage, Dramatiker|innenfestival Graz, Divadelní Flóra Olomouc, Divadlo Plzeň, and others), and in recent years she has also established herself as a director in Germany (Nationaltheater Mannheim, Schauspiel Köln, Schauspiel Leipzig, and in the upcoming 2026/27 season at Staatstheater Kassel and Schauspielhaus Wien). Kamila Polívková won the Divadelní noviny Award in the Alternative Theater category for the 2015/2016 season (Sjón: Skugga Baldur), the Divadelní noviny Award for Best Drama Production of 2020 (Werner Schwab: First Ladies), and the Josef Balvín Award for Best Production of a Text Originally Written in German in 2022 (Marlen Haushofer: The Wall) and 2023 (Lion Feuchtwanger: The Waiting Room Trilogy, part: Exile). Together with director Jan Frič, she is involved in the divadlo.pro initiative, which aims to improve the labor conditions of guest artists in Czech theaters.

Anna Davidová

Studied drama directing in Peter Mikulík’s studio at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She graduated in 2008 with productions of Hedda Gabler and Casablanca. Even her earliest work on professional stages attracted attention for its vitality, dreamlike imagery, and atmosphere. She soon became one of the most prominent talents of her generation, and in 2010 she was nominated for the DOSKY Award for her production of Nora at the State Theater in Košice. She was also nominated twice for the Alfréd Radok Award as Talent of the Year, and in 2014 she won this award, which had been renamed the Theater Critics’ Award. Today, she has a long list of successful collaborations with leading Czech and Slovak theaters, such as Prague’s Dejvické divadlo, Divadlo Na zábradlí, Švandovo divadlo in Smíchov, the Slovak National Theater, the National Theater in Brno, the Moravian-Silesian National Theater, the Klicpera Theater in Hradec Králové, HaDivadlo, the Petr Bezruč Theater, the Municipal Theater in Zlín, the Slovácké divadlo, and others. The scope of her work is remarkably broad, ranging from more intimate productions at studio theaters (the Masopust Theater Company, A Studio Rubín, etc.) to Mozart’s opera Cosi fan tutte, which she directed at the National Theater in Brno in 2018 at the invitation of Jiří Heřman. She collaborated regularly with the Husa na provázku Theater before taking on the role of artistic director in 2012: with the company, she created the productions Tichý Tarzan (The Stolen Diaries of the Phantom of Erotic Photography), P-Š-T! or The Storytellers on Uncle Jedlička, Fidlowačka aneb Kde domov můj, and the acclaimed Vitka from 2018. As a director, Anna Davidová has also collaborated with Czech Radio Brno and taught at the Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU). She joined Provázek as artistic director in 2019, and after maternity leave, she returned as a resident director for the 2024/25 season.

CED Cellar Stage
May 22, 2026
5:30–7:00 p.m.
Free admission