Which drama will win the Prix Bohemia Radio award? Five experts will decide
A dramaturge, composer, radio producer and theatre and drama directors. A five-member panel of judges comprised of five experts will decide which of the registered dramas will take home the Prix Bohemia Radio award.
The award-winning radio producer for an Irish station, Bernard Clarke, will be one of the experts deciding on the fate of the competing dramas. The holder of many domestic and international awards of various kinds can boast six awards from the Irish competition IMRO/PPI and two awards from New York Festivals. He was a finalist with his own work for Radio Art in Prix Italia, Prix Europa, Phonurgia Nova Paris, Radio Drama Prix Marulić and BBC Audio Drama Awards.
Dramaturge, translator and author of adaptations cooperating with the Croatian public radio and television HRT, Tajana Gašparović Mančalová, will also be sitting in the professional panel. She has worked in her native Croatia as a theatre and radio critic and dramaturge and was the coordinator of the Croatian Section of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). In 2014, she became the artistic director of the international Prix Marulić radio festival and she is currently the external editor of a show on Czech Radio about ten minorities living in the Czech Republic. Each year she leads a professional discussion panel at the International Small Scenes Theatre Festival in Rijeka.
The winners of the 36th annual Prix Bohemia Radio festival will be decided by twenty jury members. A jury of five professional personalities from the local and international radio environment will decide which works will advance to the main competition in each of the categories of documentaries, dramas, news reports and multimedia.
Third place in the panel will belong to the radio and theatre director Martina Schlegelová. Her first directorial efforts are connected with the independent Prague scenes, which led in 2006 to continuous cooperation with Prague’s Theatre LETÍ and its project, the Centre for Contemporary Drama. She still works in this independent theatre, which exclusively presents contemporary Czech and international dramas, as the Artistic Director and regular Director. In the years 2014 – 2017 she worked as a radio director in Czech Radio. She is currently the Artistic Director for Drama in the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice and she cooperates externally with radio.
The creative work of the fourth judge, Matouš Hejla, extends to the areas of classical music, experimental electronic music, film, theatre, radio art and multimedia. In 2018 he became a finalist in the composer competition organised by the Czech Philharmonic, which performed his composition Crossings. He holds the 2018 Trochu nižší C4 award for contemporary music and the 2016 Karel Krautgartner Award for the best song for a jazz orchestra. His music for Petr Zelenka’s film Lost in Munich (Ztraceni v Mnichově) brought him a nomination for a Czech Lion award. He has repeatedly worked with the Berg Orchestra, whose work last year included the immersive composition Prolínám, stmívám. He performs in chamber settings on the piano, dulcimer, percussion or bass guitar – instruments whose aural possibilities he constantly discovers and explores.
There four judges will be joined by a director of drama at the National Theatre, Jan Frič. He studied the field of dramatic theatre direction at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under the direction of Daria Ullrichová and Jan Nebeský. He cooperates with A studio Rubín, Divadlo Na Zábradlí, Divadlo X10, the Masopust association, Klicperovo divadlo and others.
