Year 1996

Organizational Meeting – Founding of the Theatre

Teatr Brama was founded by accident. In 1996, 17-year-old Daniel Jacewicz was an actor in the “7” theatre group (later known as Teatr MEDA) in Szczecin. Despite his acting talent (he received the Best Actor award for his performance at the 5th Short Theatre Forms Festival in Szczecin), he felt more drawn to creating performances rather than acting in them. A friend from Goleniów told him about the opportunity to lead a children’s theatre group at the Goleniów Cultural Center. On September 14, 1996, an organizational meeting for the children’s theatre group was planned. Posters were prepared to announce the recruitment, but they lacked details about the age of participants for whom the workshops were intended.

Several people attended the meeting, mostly high school students from Goleniów. Despite this small misunderstanding, Daniel decided to seize the opportunity and work with his peers, abandoning the idea of a children’s group. This decision marked the beginning of a theatre group at the Goleniów Cultural Center, which, over the next several years, would become one of the most renowned independent Polish theatres of the early 21st century.

The First Event – Founding of the Theatre

Teatr Brama was founded by accident. It was not yet a full-scale performance by the newly formed theatre group, but it was certainly the debut of its young actors and their first public showcase for the Goleniów audience. On November 8, 1996, after less than two months of activity, the group hastily assembled a poetic montage, performed in the historic Gothic Wolińska Gate. It featured poems written by the group members, as well as texts by Strindberg, Witkacy, Bergman, Baudelaire, and excerpts from Monty Python sketches. The venue, located on the fourth floor, was packed to the brim with spectators.

“In hindsight, I see a huge fire hazard—candles everywhere and dozens of bags of leaves scattered across the floor. Today, no one would dare take such a risk. After the performance, leaves fell from the windows of Wolińska Gate for hours. We never revisited this event or the texts performed there.”
(Daniel Jacewicz, August 7, 2020)

Statistics:

Events: 1, including:
Performances: Gothic All Souls’ Day – 1