Helena Kaut-Howson

Helena Kaut-Howson (born 1940) is a Polish-born British theatre director.

Helena Kaut-Howson was born (as Helena Kaut) in Lviv, a Polish city which was recently forcibly incorporated into Soviet Union.^[1] She is a child Holocaust survivor. She grew up in Wrocław, Poland.^[1] Her training as a director was first at the Polish State Theatre School and then at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.^[2]

Kaut-Howson originally worked as an actor in the 1950s, at the Jewish Theatre, Warsaw.^[3] She had to leave Poland after marrying a British man who was the son of an admiral working for NATO, and came to the United Kingdom then.^[1] She worked in the 1960s in direction at the Royal Court Theatre.^[3] She has directed in Israel at the Jerusalem Community Theatre, the Habima Theatre and Cameri Theater.^[3] Other work as director outside the UK includes at Monument-National in Canada and the Gate Theatre in Dublin.^[3] She has also worked with Scena Polska UK at the Polish Social and Cultural Association in London.^[4][5]

Kaut-Howson was artistic director of Theatr Clwyd in Wales between 1992 and 1995.^[3][6] The Board decided not to renew her contract, despite the financial and critical success Clwyd had under her leadership.^[7]

There was disagreement between Kaut-Howson and the theatre management about her production of The Miser at the Royal Exchange, Manchester in 2009.^[8]

Kaut-Howson has taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.^[3]

Some of the plays she has directed are her own adaptations.^[3] This includes Faithful Ruslan, which she adapted from the book by Georgi Vladimov.^[9][10]

Although Kaut-Howson does not call herself a feminist, her productions are often identified as feminist.^[2][11][12] In her production of King Lear at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre, later transferring to the Young Vic, the part of King Lear was played by a woman, Kathryn Hunter, a decision which was called "controversial".^{[2][11][13][14]}

Kaut-Howson values working with actors from the theatre company Complicité.^[2] She believes that theatre is about a company performing, rather than individual actors.^[2]

Kaut-Howson was instrumental in bringing the work of Bruno Schulz to the stage.^[15][9]

• Peter Brook Open Space Award 1994 for Outstanding Body of Work at Theatr Clwyd^[3]
• Liverpool Post and Echo Arts Award 1992 for Best Director (The Devils)^[3]
• UK Theatre Awards Regional Theatre Awards 1995 for Best Director (The Rose Tattoo)^{[citation needed]}
• Contact International Festival, Torun 1994 Critics Award (Full Moon)^{[citation needed]}
• Manchester Evening News Award 1996 for Best Production (The Hindle Wakes)^{[citation needed]}
• Manchester Evening News Awards 1997 for Best Production (Much Ado About Nothing)^{[citation needed]}
• Polish Festival of Premieres, Bydgoszcz 2004: Grand Prix for Best Director (Victory)^{[citation needed]}

• Werewolves, translation from Teresa Lubkiewicz-Urbanowicz [pl], Plays and Players, 1978
• Grave Acts, Dialog, 1981
• Tola Korian, Pamietnik Teatralny, 1986
• Full Moon, Plays International, 1993
• "Flowers Among the Ruins - Identity and the Theatre", in Views of Theatre in Ireland 1995, The Arts Council, 1995
• Victory (translation into Polish), Dialog, 2004
• Remembering Pinter, Dialog, 2010
• Sons Without Fathers, from Chekhov's Platonov, Oberon Books, 2013

From 2017, Kaut-Howson wrote a column in Tydzień Polski, called "Notes from the wings".