PREDRAG ŠTRBAC, director
Born in 1970 in Negotin. Earned his degree in theatre and radio direction at the Faculty of Performing Arts in Belgrade with the play What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Love?, inspired by the writing and intimate correspondance by A.P. Chekhov and Olga Kniper. He studied with Dejan Mijač, Egon Savin, Ljubomir Muci Draškić, Nikola Jevtić. Permanet director of the Drama of the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad.
Directed: God from a Machine by L. Raičević. DADOV Belgrade; Four Sides of the World by P. Jerotijević, DADOV; Mrs. Hasan Aga by A. Sajc, NT 'Zoran Radmilović' Zaječar; Hansel and Gretel by M. Mladjenović, NT Sombor; Without Difference by P. Jerotijević, KULT teatar Belgrade; A Letter to the Dictator! by F. Arrabal, BITEF teatar Belgrade; Friendship, the Oldest Craftsmanshift by B. Crnčević, NT 'Toša  Jovanović' Zrenjanin; Fuck Him, Who Started It First?! by D. Dukovski, NT Kikinda; You Forgot Me, Živka byM. Novković, Scena 'Mata Milošević' Belgrade; Chicken byN. Kolyada, NT Srpska Republic, Banja Luka (Prize of the audience for best play in the 2001/2002 season); I am Going Hunting byG. Feydeau, Theatre on the Roof, Cultural Centre Mladenovac; Streetcar Named Desire byT. Williams, NT Srpska Republic; Snowhite and the Seven Dwarfs by P. Horvat (after Grimm brothers), Childrens Theatre Subotica; Disco Pigs by E. Walsh, SNT Novi Sad (best director prize at the international festival in Ternopil, Ukraine 2004); Kola mudrosti, dvoja ludosti by A. N. Ostrovsky, National Theatre Subotica; Teeth by A. Novaković, Serbian National Theatre Novi Sad; Ban Prvi by B. Brđanin, NT Srpska Republic Banja Luka; Streetcar in the Wheet by B. Krstić, Children’s Theatre/Gyermekysinhaz Subotica; In the Land of the Terrible Censor by F. Tabak, Bosnian National Theatre, B/H; Romeo and Juliette  R&J  by W. Shakespeare, SNT Novi Sad; Bastien and Bastienne  after Mozart’s opera, Children’s Theatre/Gyermekysinhaz Subotica; Nightingale after H. K. Andersen, Puppet Theatre Niš; Ugly BELEF 06 and Little Theatre 'Duško Radović' Belgrade; Beauty and the Beast Pierrot, Bosnian National Theatre Zenica, B/H; Hanibal the Underground by H. Boichev, NT Šabac; Ivanov by A. P. Chekhov, SNT Novi Sad; Ladybird by V. Sigarev, Bosnian National Theatre Zenica, B/H; In Search of the Lost Time by A. Janković, DADOV; Fortress Europe by I. Marojević, BELEF 08; Harman by M. von Mayenburg, Atelier 212; As If by B. Dimitrijević, SNT Novi Sad / Orient Express Festival Stuttgart; The Deceased by B. Nušić, NT 'Toša Jovanović' Zrenjanin; Barbello by B.Srbljanović, SNT Novi Sad.

HENRIK IBSEN (Henrik Johan Ibsen), was born March 20th, 1828, in Skien, Norway. He spent a number of years at Grimstad as apprentice to an apothecary, and in 1850 entered the University of Christiania; soon after, he visited Copenhagen and Dresden for the purpose of making a study of the stage, in preparation to his assuming the managership of the theater of Bergen. He remained in Bergen for five years, and at the end of that period went to Christiania, to manage another theater. In 1862, he was forced to relinquish the theater and become "esthetic adviser" to still another theater. Two years later he left Norway, and lived in Italy and Germany until 1874, when he returned to his native land; after a short sojourn there, he returned to Germany and lived in Dresden and Munich until 1891, at which time he finally made his home in Christiania, residing there until his death, in 1906.
Ibsen cannot be said to be a great originator, either technically or philosophically. As a dramatist he owes much to Augier and Dumas fils; as a philosopher to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. He did, however, eventually develop a technique all his own and a philosophy apart from that of any of his intellectual forbears. His great importance lies in the fact that he took the "well-made" play where the French had left it and brought it to a state of perfection which no one has as yet improved upon. Like many philosophers he often changed his ideas; in An Enemy of the People, Doctor Stockmann asserts that most truths cease to be such after twenty years' time; in his poetic dramas and in many of his social pieces he preaches the doctrine of ideals, and in The Wild Duck he seems to deny their value. Yet if his work is viewed in its entirety, something like a philosophy of life, a distinct system of thinking and belief, may be traced. Above all, Ibsen believed in the individual, in his right to live his life in accordance with his personal creed, in spite of all obstacles; he says time and again that a man in order to realize the best that is in him must have the courage, the will, to be himself. Now the individual who so wills invariably finds the serried ranks of society against him; if he be strong enough he will break the social bonds, if not, he is merely weak, and fails. Nora must "live her life"; she is forced, in order to do this, to leave home and family, thereby shattering one of the most "inviolable" shibboleths of society. Ibsen is determined to bring to judgment most of the social prejudices of his time, and the result is that for thirty years all the scorn and hatred of an outraged social system [were] heaped upon his head. The fearful and acrimonious attacks against him on the appearance of A Doll's House and Ghosts were merely indications of the horror with which his ideas were regarded by the people of the time, but the calm acquiescence with which a much more outspoken play than either of these -- Brieux's Damaged Goods -- [was later] accepted gives ample proof that society was only a few years behind the Scandinavian leader.
As a poet of prime importance, as an original and in many ways revolutionary thinker, as dramatic craftsman and artist Ibsen is rightly considered the greatest of modern dramatists, and one of the few dramatists of all time.