Which dramas will win a Prix Bohemia Radio Award? Five experts will decide

This year’s jurors for the Drama category include for example Eva Blechová. She is an author of radio documentaries and plays. The drama Pro Patria Mori, written for the 100th anniversary of the First World War, was awarded at the Prix Bohemia and Prix Marulić 2016 festivals. The adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Nutshell won third place at the Prix Bohemia Radio 2021 and was among the top three finalists at the international BBC Audio Awards in the same year.

Eva completed her PhD studies at the Department of Creative Writing and Pedagogy at the Academy of Performing Arts under Professor Ivan Vyskočil and studied psychology and management in Paris. Previously, she worked as Head of the Cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence and as a corporate strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company. In 2022, she published Wild Ideas in Safe Environment (Divoké nápady v bezpečném prostředí), a book on developing team creativity. She lives between Prague and London.

Kevin Brew is a radio producer with RTÉ Drama On One, working across drama, documentaries and arts programmes. He co-created the audio memoir, Digging For Fire, which took a Special Commendation in the music category at the Prix Europa in 2022. In 2017, he collaborated on and scored the short play Flight Risk, based on the experience of asylum seekers in Ireland. Recently he worked as a producer on Marconi & Me by Zoë Comyns, which won third prize in the Drama Category at Prix Marulić (2023). Kevin has produced and directed radio plays by writers including Eimear McBride, David Zane Mairowitz, Kevin Barry, Siobhán Mannion, Michael West, Rosaleen McDonagh, and Danielle McLaughlin.

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His radio features include the series Sound Stories on sound and the imagination, and the archive-based series Mixtape. He has given guest tutorials in sound design, acting for microphone and radio drama at, among others, Queen’s University, Belfast. He has also given workshops for the EBU radio drama group in Stockholm (2014) and Prague (2016).

Playwright, director and the main stage director of the Prague City Theatres since the 2018/19 season, David Drábek. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Palacký University in Olomouc, specialising in film and theatre studies. At university, he and Darek Král co-founded the theatre studio Burning Giraffes, which specialises in the genre of modern cabaret. He has directed plays in many Czech theatres, including the National Theatre and the Vinohrady Theatre. He was a permanent director at the Minor Theatre in Prague between 2005 and 2007. For eight years from 2009 he was the artistic director of the Klicpera Theatre in Hradec Králové. In 1995, he won the Alfréd Radok Foundation Award for the best play of the year for his script of Jane from the Park and in 2003 the same award for his play Aquabella, which later won the Best Czech Play of 2005. His play The Mašín Brothers Square won second place at the 2007 drama competition of the Alfréd Radok Awards, and in 2009 it became the Czech Play of the Year. Chocolate Eaters won the Czech Play of the Year in 2011. David Drábek is one of the most performed and translated Czech playwrights and a director with distinctive imagination.

The fourth seat on the jury will go to Marek Kundlák is a theatre, radio, music and literary artist. He studied dramaturgy and directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and he has been involved in theatre and radio directing and dramaturgy, as well as music production, writing and the fusing these arts. He worked as a project manager of the Slovak National Theatre Opera. He currently works at the Slovak Radio in the Literature and Drama department as a music dramaturg and external director.

Ladislav Železný, the last member of the jury, has been involved in the development of sound design for radio plays and literary works at Czech Radio since 2008. He currently works as a music dramaturg of the Creative Group – Music department, focusing on unconventional music and experimental radio production. He curates the R{A}DIO{CUSTICA} project, where he also produces special concert events, live broadcasts, or recordings of concerts. He also prepares the Radioateliér programme with its exclusive premiere series PremEdice Radioateliéru, all for the Czech Radio Vltava station. For several years now, he has also been participating in one of the biggest media bridges “Art’s Birthday – Euroradio Ars Acustica Special Evening”, which is part of the global conceptual Art's Birthday celebration.

During his tenure at Czech Radio, the radio plays he cooperated on and his musical and dramaturgical endeavours have won numerous awards at home (Prix Bohemia) and abroad (Prix Marulič, Grand Prix Nova, Palma Ars Acustica, Phonurgia Nova, Prix Italia, Prix Europe, Karl-Sczuka-Preis). Apart from working for Czech Radio, he is an author of sound installations and an intermedia artist.