A milestone anniversary – it’s serious stuff! Most often it’s just a pretext to reminiscence about history. But a mermaid is a perverse being. Especially for an 80 year-old without legs!
For our 80th anniversary, we won’t be focusing on the past, but on the present and the future. Our 75th anniversary was dedicated to our history. Now we want to invite our Audiences to take a look behind the curtain, to spaces usually unavailable for our guests, in which magic happens and theatre is created. We present to you the people of Syrena, without whom we wouldn’t be able to produce any of our shows, although you never see most of them performing on stage. You’ll get to know them thanks to the photographs shot by Krzysztof Bieliński, as well as during a virtual tour around our theatre.
The virtual tour
- The virtual tour is best viewed on desktop computers and laptops in full-screen mode. To turn it on, click on the square icon (Full screen) in the menu at the bottom of the tour view. We do not recommend using the tour on mobile phones.
- The tour is equipped with a navigation menu. To “expand” it, click on the icon with three horizontal lines in the top left corner of the tour view. The menu allows for convenient navigation between rooms. You can also “walk” around the theatre using the white arrows visible on the floor.
- The tour features over 50 locations with photo galleries, videos, interviews, sounds, and text entries about the history of Syrena. These are scattered throughout the theatre. All these materials can be easily accessed via the navigation menu.
Daily life in Syrena
When compared with other theatres, we’re not a particularly big institution: there are approx. 40 people working full-time (including ten actors) and we only have one stage that accommodates 300 audience members. But the group responsible for creating Syrena is much larger: it consists of actors and actresses who we hire for productions through casting calls; musicians playing in bands (depending on the title, between four and several dozen people perform live); those supporting us in larger productions as additional sound technicians, lightening engineers, make-up artists, wardrobe supervisors, stuntpeople; or those who run our workshops.
Limitations fuel creative thinking. We arrange our repertoire in such a way as not to lose too much time on technical changes, so that the stage is used as often as possible. We also perform shows and concerts in the space of our Bistro Syrena, and children’s plays – in the Białołęka Culture Centre. We gave 308 performances and concerts in the 2023/2024 season, for around 85 600 audience members.
What does the daily life of an 80-year-old Syrena look like?
It starts on Monday morning, when technicians enter the stage to dismantle the set of the show performed over the weekend and install the scenery for the next production, all under the supervision of Leszek Sałasiński. Next, it’s time for light technicians led by Gustaw Trzciński (they rearrange and adjust the spotlights) and sound technicians led by Kuba Niedźwiedź and musicians led by Tomasz Filipczak (they adjust the orchestra pit, connect instruments, and perform sound checks).
Between shows, wardrobe assistants clean and fix costumes; make-up artists take care and model wigs; new costumes are sown by seamstress Joanna Rokicka, while stage and prop technicians led by Karol Korytko construct elements for future productions. In the rehearsal spaces, we are either preparing for a premiere or organizing workshops. From Monday to Thursday, afternoons and evenings are dedicated to movement and dance classes for adults and seniors.
In our office we work in a small team: Łukasz Mitka is responsible for arranging the repertoire and cast of shows; Zuzanna Milandinović is tasked with producing new shows; educational projects are coordinated by Paulina Huczyńska; the technical division is supervised by Kamil Sadowski; Łukasz Barszcz takes care of ongoing repairs and investments; Joanna Biesiaga is usually busy recording, making photos, or editing videos for Facebook and Instagram, while Michał Wybieralski is writing our social media posts, editing theatre programs, or planning how to promote our upcoming premiere. Audience members most often interact with Mirosław Kalinowski and Joanna Bogucka, who are in charge of ticket sale, while all paperwork is taken care of by our financial department led by our main accountant, Barbara Turlej. All of our work is fuelled by the passion of our director Monika Walecka and her artistic assistant director, Jacek Mikołajczyk. Everyone in the office is on a first-name basis, and we focus on maintaining a friendly atmosphere, constant contact, and collaboration.
So, life in Syrena starts on Monday morning, when our stage decorations are rearranged, and ends on Sunday evening, after the last show. It would be really hard to find any place in our theatre where nothing happens during the entire week! And this is how our life looks throughout the entire season, from early September to early July. We slow down a bit for the summer break, since it’s the time when we organize daily workshops for children and teenagers. We can consider the period from the last performance in July to mid-August as the less “stressful” period, when the theatrical machine takes a break. During this time, the set for the upcoming musical arrives, we assemble it on stage, and the creators and cast resume rehearsals in preparation of the next premiere in September.
80 years around Syrena. Anniversary multimedia project
Concept and text: Michał Wybieralski
Audio and video: Joanna Biesiaga
“Behind the scenes of the Syrena Theatre” photo shoot: Krzysztof Bieliński
Anniversary exhibition project: Bogna Michalik
Virtual tour: Cyfrogaleria.pl
Photo editing and prop photos: Maria Pazura
Text editing: Anna Grabowska