*1965
Director, choreographer and playwright, many-sided personality in the Czech theatre life. He first studied dance, mime and musical acting. After that he went on to graduate as drama director from Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU) where he taught work on musicals for over ten years. He directed drama and world musicals, both classics and new – Hair, Finnegan’s Rainbow, My Fair Lady, Grease, Full Monty! etc. He works as choreographer for leading Czech drama and musical theatres. He is also a successful playwright – he was awarded the 3rd Prize in Alfréd Radok Playwriting Competition, his entry The Captives of Dark was subsequently produced in 1995. The Jungle Book is his first original libretto for a musical.
Radek Balaš (libretto), Ondřej Brousek (music)
THE JUNGLE BOOK (KNIHA DŽUNGLE)
An original musical adaptation of the well-known book by Rudyard Kipling
F 7, M 18
Comic scenes, entertaining music, acrobatics and dance – you will find all of these in an original production of the musical based on the well-known book of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. The musical was created especially for the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen by the composer Ondřej Brousek and the librettist, director and choreographer Radek Balaš. The authors bring to the stage adventures of a little boy growing among animals in the jungle in India and learning its laws. At the same time, the storyline is a fitting parable about the relationship between people and the world they live in. Ondřej Brousek’s music has the best of the classical musical tradition at its core, but its sound sometimes courageously leaps to the most contemporary styles of hip-hop or street dance music. The Indian jungle with its tough laws of nature is almost unexpectedly similar to the jungle of the contemporary human society, and the story is that of the humankind stretched as it is between nature and civilization. While the “adult” audience should be able to read our Jungle Book as a dramatic parable about looking for the roots of the humankind, the “children” audience should be thrilled by both the adventures in the storyline and comedy musical entries, and, of course, by the well known characters of Baloo the Bear, Bagheera the Panther, Shere Khan the Tiger and the Mother Woolf Raksha.
The musical opened at the J. K. Tyl Theatre on April 21, 2007 at its Chamber Theatre stage.
SELECTED REVIEWS:
The mood reminds of that of a rock concert where everybody applauds, whistles and shouts, there is a standing ovation at the end and already as they leave the theatre the enthusiastic audience members plan to come again at least one more time – such was the Saturday opening of the Jungle Book musical at the Chamber Theatre. (…) The Jungle Book is a musical in the real sense of the word: there are plenty of catchy tunes, intelligent and texts that – unusually for today’s theatre – do not limp and good choreography. The music by young Ondřej Brousek is of musical sort, something unheard of in the current deluge of “songals” - musical plays with songs. Martin Kumžák conducting brought both the orchestra and the singers to the boiling point so that the music flows from the first bar over the proscenium and through the auditorium all the way through to the last rows on the balcony.
Markéta Čekanová, Operetta closes the season brilliantly with The Jungle Book, MF DNES 23. 4. 2007
No doubt original adaptation of the Jungle Book, full of invention (…)
This production is not a prêt a porter musical but a very special magic show full of music. A long applause at the end, including standing ovation, was well deserved. (…)
The adventurous stories of Mowgli in the Indian jungle will resonate with children and young viewers while the adult audience will be able to interpret drama and humour of the production as a philosophical parable on human life. (…)
The Jungle Book at J. K. Tyl Theatre is a triumph of professional approach, talent and energy. (…)
Petr Dvořák, Mowgli and Jungle Animals Deserved a Standing Ovation, Plzeňský deník 23. 4. 2007
The creator of the project, the author of the book, the director and choreographer Radek Balaš concentrated mainly on Mowgli’s personality and the emotions of the surrounding life. In his storytelling, he sharply draws archetypes of individual animal characters using typical Kipling symbolism. His directing surprises by its imagination, as a choreographer he brought in not only attractive dance and acrobatics elements but most of all precision of the movement. (…)
Vítězslav Sladký, Jungle Sounds Roar from the Stage, Plzeňský deník 2. 5. 2007
Radek Balaš (libretto), Ondřej Brousek (music)
ADELA HAS YET TO DINE (ADÉLA JEŠTĚ NEVEČEŘELA)
M 10, F 10
A Stage Musical Adaptation of the Czech Movie
The storyline of this musical both sends up cheap detective novel and pulp literature in general and goes on to point out graphically the major contrasts between Czech and American cultures.
The invincible private eye Nick Carter arrives to Prague to help solve a case that baffles local police. He is endowed with a brain of a genius – on his way from New York, he was able to learn effortlessly the Czech language – and the most sophisticated modern technology. But on the spot, especially over a couple of tasty beers in Prague taverns, he discovers that the ways of life in Bohemia are quite different from those in America. Will he be able to thwart devilish plots of the arch criminal Count von Kratzmar and to save the delicate flower of innocence of the delightful Květuška?
This parody of cheap trash detective novels first appeared in 1977 as a movie directed by the renowned duo of the comedy director Oldřich Lipský and his old collaborator Jiří Brdečka (who previously wrote for him several original storylines and screenplays including the Western spoof The Lemonade Joe, or, a Horse Opera, based on a WWII theatre production and extremely popular with Czech audiences). Adela Has to Dine Yet brought together many outstanding artists resulting in an outstanding film comedy that remains as fresh today as it was when first seen.
The stark contrasts between Czech and American solutions to individual situations in the plot drive the action with kind-hearted humour. The hyperbole showing these contrasts acquires new dimensions and new qualities in the current climate of “global Americanisation” of our world when compared to the time when the original movie was shot. The stage musical version thus offers many new opportunities for interesting updating of the script, as demonstrated on the two productions of the musical in 2008. The play was staged both at the Slovácké divadlo Uherské Hradiště and at the Theatre Broadway in Prague with enthusiastic acclaim from the press.