Artistic director, director, film and theatre actor, Povilas Gaidys has been connected with Klaipėda and the city's culture all his life. In the minds of theatre audiences and critics, Klaipėda Drama Theatre and Povilas Gaidys are still synonymous to this day.
Appointed as the theatre's chief director in 1963, Povilas Gaidys united the two different troupes that were present in the theatre at the time into a single creative ensemble, began to form a mature repertoire, and, through it, a new attitude of the people of Klaipėda to theatre art. The best productions of P. Gaidis at that time matured a thinking, analysing audience, and contributed a lot to the development of people's national self-consciousness.
Such productions as Just. Marcinkevičius' "Mindaugas", "Mažvydas", "Cathedral", "Shooting Stars", I. Kocherga's "Masters of Time", V. Mayakovsky's "The Bath", B. Sruoga's "The Giant's Pawnsmeat", J. Glinski's "Under the Sign of the Scales", A. Kopkovsky's "The Elephant", M. Gorky's "At the Bottom", V. Merezhko's "The Mill of Proletarian Fortune", K. Saya's "Polyglot. Abstinentas", "Žemaičių piemuo" and many others, had not only an aesthetic impact but also a huge political resonance. The opposition productions of P. Gaidis not only promoted the theatre as a distinctive, unparalleled beacon of the city's culture, but also the port city itself.
P. Gaidys did not forget his other vocation - acting. He acted in theatre and cinema films such as "June, the Beginning of Summer", "A Flight Across the Atlantic", "A Woman and Her Four Husbands", "Else from Gilija", etc.
P. The creative works of Gaidis (more than 80 performances have been created!) broaden the viewers' horizons, encourage a deeper knowledge of the world and man. The director's strong creative and civic stance has nurtured both the theatre and the audience.
Over fifty years of work, Gaidys has matured a troupe of high artistic quality, which includes four shows of actors prepared by the director himself. Klaipėda can be proud to have the most creative theatre company in Lithuania. This is one of Gaidis' greatest achievements.
Some of the most recent productions by P. Gaidis include E. E. Schmitt's "The Harlot", "Oscar and Madame Rose", "The Tectonics of Feelings", "The Tectonics of Feelings", "The Witch" and "The Witch" by J. Kesselring's "Arsenic and Old Lace", A. Herzog's "4000 Miles", E. de Filippo's "Christmas at the House of Kupjels", J. Pulinovič's "The Land of Else", etc.
For his services to Lithuanian theatre art, P. Gaidžis has been awarded the following honours. It will be open until 29 November. The exhibition will be open during the opening hours of the theatre's reading room and before performances.
