Eimuntas Nekrošius (born on November 21, 1952 in Pažobris village, Raseiniai district municipality) is one of the most famous theatre directors in Lithuania.
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Career
In 1978 he graduated from Lunacharsky Theater Art Institute in Moscow. He worked in the Vilnius State Youth Theatre from 1978 until 1979, and in the Kaunas State Drama Theatre from 1979 until 1980. In 1980, he returned to the Vilnius State Youth Theatre, where he staged several plays including:
- The Square (1980),
- Pirosmani, Pirosmani (1981),
- rock opera Love and Death in Verona by Sigitas Geda and K. Antanėlis’ (1982, renewed in 1996),
- Chinghiz Aitmatov’s The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years (1983),
- Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1986),
- Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose (1991),
- Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Faust (2006).
Among the features characteristic to his plays are the soothing background music of a repetitive pattern throughout the performance, extensive use of dance and movement and unique props on stage, as well as an employment of natural substances as water, fire, wind, ice and stone. The length of a single performance often exceeds conventional viewing time, since Nekrošius favours complex and challenging pieces to stage, such as the Song of Solomon or The Seasons by Kristijonas Donelaitis.
Awards
All productions by Nekrošius were awarded diplomas of various theatre festivals in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and other countries. Nekrošius is a laureate of numerous state awards. In 1994 Nekrošius received a special prize of the Lithuanian Theatre Union as the Best Director of the Year, and an award of the Baltic Assembly for Aleksandr Pushkin’s Little Tragedies (Mozart and Salieri. Don Juan. Plague) as the best theatre performance in the Baltic States. In 1997, Nekrošius produced one of his most successful directions – Hamlet by William Shakespeare, starring Lithuanian music idol Andrius Mamontovas, that took part in nearly all main European theatre festivals and received numerous awards includingt Lithuanian National Prize. In November 2002, he produced Giuseppe Verdi's opera Macbeth at Teatro Comunale Florence. In 2001, Nekrošius received the prestigious international Konstantin Stanislavski’s award in Moscow. In 2005 he received the Herder Prize.
