Opening Night: 12 September 2000
Author: Anton Chekhov
Title: The Cherry Orchard
Original Title: Вишнëвый сад
Translator: Jerzy Jarocki
Director:
Maciej Prus

Auditorium: Boguslawski Hall
Running time: 2 hours 30 min

The Cherry Orchard

director: Maciej Prus
set design: Boris Kudlička
costume design: Zofia de Inẽs
music: Jacek Ostaszewski
lighting design: Krzysztof Trzaskowski

Cast:

Lubov Ranevskaya, a landowner Teresa Budzisz-Krzyżanowska
Anya, her daughter Karolina Dryzner / Agnieszka Kotlarska (from May 12, 2001, guest actor) / Aneta Todorczuk (from October 5, 2002)
Varya, her adopted daughter Joanna Kwiatkowska-Zduń / Katarzyna Taracińska (from March 29, 2001)
Leonid Gayev, Ranevskaya's brother Jan Englert
Yermolay Lopakhin, a merchant Artur Żmijewski
Pyotr Trofimov, a student Mariusz Bonaszewski
Boris Simeonov-Pischik, a landowner Andrzej Blumenfeld
Charlotte, a governess Anna Chodakowska
Simon Yepikhodov, a clerk Leszek Zduń
Dunyasha, a maid Aleksandra Justa / Kinga Ilgner (from December 20, 2000) / Beata Ścibakówna (from May 12, 2001)
Firs, a butler Zdzisław Tobiasz (guest actor)
Yasha, a young butler Arkadiusz Janiczek
Passer-by Marcin Kocela (guest actor) / Bartłomiej Bobrowski (from October 11, 2001)

viola Marek Czech / Dariusz Wachnik (understudy)
double bass Tomasz Januchta / Kazimierz Jandrysiak (understudy)
flute Marcin Kamiński / Robert Nalewajka (understudy)
violin Marek Zebura / Mariusz Kielan (understudy) / Stanisław Tomanek (understudy) 

Production team:

  • director's assistant: Mariusz Bieliński
  • set designer's assistants: Jadwiga Michalska, Anita Trzaskowska
  • lighting technicians: Krzysztof Trzaskowski, Zbigniew Szulim, Korneliusz Wieczorek
  • sound techniciansRafał Barański, Mariusz Maszewski
  • stage manager: Krzysztof Kuszczyk
  • prompter: Jolanta Szydłowska

Gallery:

  • HEAVEN AND HELL

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  • OTHER DELIGHTS

    This adaptation of the novel Other Delights is the second staging of one of Jerzy Pilch's works at the National Theatre, following The Holy Father's Skis.  

  • FAUST

    Faust is a story based on an ancient legend of a scholar who yearns so much for just a moment of happiness that he makes a pact with the devil. 

  • FEBLIK

    Małgorzata Maciejewska's surprising drama received the Tadeusz Różewicz Drama Award in 2022, the competition's first year. The show is directed by Lena Frankiewicz. 

  • A DREAM PLAY

    After the well-received Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Sławomir Narloch returned to the National Theatre with another premiere – A Dream Play by Strindberg.

     

  • KING LEAR

    King Lear may be Shakespeare's boldest examination of human nature. Jan Englert will play the title role in the National Theatre's production.

  • WAITING FOR GODOT

    "What do we do now? Wait. [...] We're waiting for Godot". Piotr Cieplak directs Waiting for Godot by Beckett. Is this a classic yet? Does it still have its avant-garde power?

  • FREDRO: THE JUBILEE YEAR

    To celebrate 230 years since Aleksander Fredro's birth, the National Theatre invites you to an evening dedicated to the life and works of Poland’s greatest comedy writer. 

  • TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS

    Małgorzata Bogajewska directs for the second time at the National Theatre. This time she draws on Ödön von Horváth's 1931 drama.

  • THE THEATRE MAKER

    The play by Thomas Bernhard, one of the most outstanding playwrights of the second half of the 20th century. In the title role – Jerzy Radziwiłowicz. 

  • ALICE'S WONDERLAND

    Have you ever quarreled with the Time or visited a forest where things have no names? Alice’s Wonderland is a musical performance based on the famous novel by Lewis Carroll. 

  • THE MISANTHROPE

    Jan Englert stages a classic play by Molière. What is Alcest's misanthropy: an uncompromising commitment to the truth or a doomed uprising against social conventions?

  • THE BOOKS OF JACOB

    In the middle of the 18th century Jacob Frank proclaimed the new principles of the Jewish faith. This is a staging of the most important novel by Polish Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. 

  • THE DECALOGUE

    A meditation upon the moral foundations of the present – an iconic work of Polish cinema, rethought thirty-five years after its creation by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. 

  • MARY STUART

    Grzegorz Wiśniewski returns to the classic drama about human passions interwoven in a ruthless machinery of history and intrigue.

  • MÜNCHHAUSEN FOR ADULTS

    Baron von Münchhausen lived in the 18th century and told incredible stories about himself. Maciej Wojtyszko directs his own play about the famous adventurer and mystifier.

  • Solidarity with Ukraine | Солідарні з Україною

    The ensemble of the National Theatre stands in solidarity with the Ukrainians who are fighting for the independence of their homeland.

  • PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

    1900. On a hot, stormy day, Mrs Appleyard's boarding school residents go on a picnic near Hanging Rock. The new theatrical version of the Australian prose classics. 

  • SNAKE SKIN

    Artur Urbański directs his own play which main character is Ruth Berlau, one of Bertolt Brecht's closest associates and life companions.

  • AUTUMN SONATA

    A story about the need for love and acceptance, about an inherited emotional coldness, about the psychological costs of creativity. A theatrical version of a film script by Ingmar Bergman. 

  • MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS

    A performance about the need to experience something that surpasses us. In the title role of the prioress – Małgorzata Kożuchowska. 

  • HEDDA GABLER

    Hedda Gabler – work by Henrik Ibsen, a master of psychological realism – in stage interpretation of director Kuba Kowalski is a poetic performance.


  • HOW TO BE LOVED

    This is the performance about love and moral responsibility for another person as well as the mechanisms controlling human memory. The dramatisation of the story by Kazimierz Brandys.


  • LUNGS

    Briliant, full of humour and touching love story of a young couple. Breakups and comebacks, passion and sex, the first important decisions and the search for meaning in a complex, modern world.


  • UHLANS

    The Museum of All-Time Polish Uhlans. Exhibits of the national exacerbation. A serious comedy in three acts about the entanglement in myths of Polishness. 


  • THE IMAGE MAKERS

    The truth about the essence of creation and responsibility in art. Director Viktor Sjöström is working on the film The Phantom Carriage, based on the novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. 

  • FOREFATHER'S EVE

    Mickiewicz's poetic drama interpreted by Lithuanian Master Eimuntas Nekrošius — theatre visionary known for his unique theatrical language.


  • KORDIAN

    The Polish nation's tragic choice: to die heroically in the name of a noble idea or live a life "making shoes for dogs"? — the alternative presented to Kordian in two parables.

  • FLEA THE SWINDLER

    Tremendous fun and great laughs – not just for kids. The antics of the Flea are directed by Anna Seniuk with the music composed by Maciej Małecki.


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