Home - Polish Cultural Institute

The OBIE-winning Immigrants' Theatre Project presents the American premiere of Sandbox and The First Time, two one-act plays by Michal Walczak. The two works, will be presented back-to-back in a collaboration between the acclaimed Polish director Piotr Kruszczynski (Sandbox) and the Artistic Director of the ITP, Marcy Arlin (The First Time), are part of MADE IN POLAND: a Festival of New Polish Plays presented by the Polish Cultural Institute from October 22 to November 30 at 59E59 Theaters.

Sandbox (premiere directed by Kruszczynski in Walbrzych, 2003) and The First Time (premiered at Warsaw's National Theatre, 2006), two one-act comedies by Michal Walczak, examine the ferocious, tragicomic rough-and-tumble between the sexes. With the underlying cynicism and absurdism often found in Eastern European theater, both explore the successive stages of relationships. The battle of the sexes literally starts in the Sandbox, in the hilarious confrontation between a boy guarding his space and a girl who just wants to play, and it reveals the inability of a man and a woman to articulate emotions, except through the childish language of globally mass-marketed brand names and advertising. The play has been staged in 11 theatres throughout Europe and has been translated into German, English, Hungarian, Czech and Italian. In The First Time, He and She try to initiate a sexual relationship, but are thwarted at each step by the weather, family, hunger, and the punctured illusions of a post-communist society. It is an outrageous look at erotic interplay under absurd circumstances, when a woman demands from her eager boyfriend that their "first time" be perfect.

MADE IN POLAND: a Festival of New Polish Plays is the most comprehensive introduction to contemporary Polish playwriting ever presented in the United States, both as to themes addressed and the diversity of talent represented. The festival offers a chance to see Polish playwriting through both Polish and American eyes: besides the American-Polish collaboration on Sandbox and The First Time, there is also an American production of the Polish hit, Made in Poland (The Play Company), and a landmark production by Poland's Theatre of the Eighth Day, The Files (performed here in English), which made waves when it premiered in Poland in 2007.

The translation of Sandbox and The First Time was made possible through a grant from the Book Institute in Krakow, Poland. This production is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and by Swing Space, a program of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, generously supported by the September 11th Fund. Project space is donated by Capstone Equities. Additional support comes from the Trust for Mutual Understanding.