Jana Patočková

Jana Patočková, theatre critic, editor and editor. She graduated from Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU), majoring in theatre science and dramaturgy. After a short period at the City Theatre Kolín, she worked from 1963 to 1971 as an editor at the magazine Divadlo. This magazine represented the top of theatre criticism at the time, brought valuable information about foreign theatre events, responded to new trends in European theatre, published contemporary domestic and foreign plays and was a significant co-creator of the glory of Czech theatre in the 1960s. Jana Patočková focused on French theatre and made an indisputable contribution, both through her reflections and translations, to bringing French theatre and drama closer to Czech theatregoers and to promoting Czech culture in francophone countries. After the magazine was banned in 1971, she worked at the Institute for Cultural and Educational Activities, from 1978 to 1983 she was unable to work in the field (her father was the first spokesman for the Charter 77) and made a living by occasional translations, from 1983 to 1990 she worked in the archives of the National Theatre. In the 1980s she contributed to the samizdat magazine O divadle. After 1989 she published in professional journals and newspapers, and from 1993 to 1998 she was editor-in-chief of the Czech Theatre magazine. From 1990 to 2001 she headed the Publishing Department of the Theatre Institute. She conceived its new editorial activities, managed key editions of Czech and World Theatre, and participated in important editorial projects, such as the publication of the Czech translation of Patrice Pavis's Dictionary of the theatre or Brockett's History of the theatre. Her studies on the work of Otomar Krejč and the theatre of the 1960s have contributed significantly to a new view of the history of Czech theatre.

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Bibliography of books