The distinction is honored to authors, whose artistic journey was violently interrupted by the totalitarian regime or to those who were persecuted and divested of civil rights and freedoms due to their indomitable ethical atittudes. “If we touch a hot stove, we burn ourselves and we remember it. But humankind is incorrigible,” Šmíd, like other laureates, warned against forgetting.
Helena Albertová became an employee of the Theatre Institute in Prague in 1975. She worked in the Stage Design Department, then in the Exhibition Department. In 1989, she decided to work freelance, but one year later, she became the Theatre Institute Director and remained there until 1995. She currently participates in exhibition and publishing activites as an author (the representative book Josef Svoboda – Scenographer) or as an editor (the book series Personalities of Czech Scenography)
Apart from the first work Parádní pokoj, which has been performed in several theatres, Helena Albertová’s other plays had a difficult path to leak out. After her play Letní kino Život (State Theatre in Ostrava, 1977) had been banned, none of her plays was approved for production until 1986. During the involuntary break from theatre, the author started to work for Czech Radio, which has gradually broadcast her original works, Kde končí hra (1978), Snídaně s nočním hlídačem (1989), the series with eight episodes Tomu hodně, tomu málo, tomu nic (1979), or adaptations of Pavel Landovský’s plays Hodinový hoteliér (1992) and Arest (1993). She was the scriptwriter and director of all five episodes of the documentary cycle Paradoxy českého divadla (1997). As a director and play adaptor, she is also engaged in amateur theatre (Lesní divadlo Mlýny, Kytlický ochotnický spolek). She has participated in organization of Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space.
