Graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava in film and television dramaturgy and script writing (1985) and from the Faculty of Arts of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra where she majored in aesthetics (2016). In 1985, she started working for the Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica as a dramaturg, and in 1992 she became the theatre’s director. In 1993 and 1999, she spent two study stays in theatres in Marseille and Paris (France) and in 2002 a residential scholarship programme ArtsLink Residencies in the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta (USA). As a dramaturg, script writer and director, she has produced dramatic and literary work for children and adults – mostly in her local Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads where she created numerous adaptations as well as original plays (many of them in collaboration with her husband, director Marián Pecko). She has been shortlisted for several Slovak and international drama awards (Drama, Alfréd Radok Award, Golden Theatre Frog). The winning plays were published in Slovak collections and journals, or produced on home stages. Her play Fetishists was produced in 2008 by the Slovak National Theatre and directed by Soňa Ferancová. In 2013, Škripková published – in collaboration with the Theatre Institute in Bratislava – a theatre-educational title Theatre play-pha-bet about creative dramatic writing with children. In cooperation with University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra she published Contexts of Devised Puppet Theatre (Male and Female Search in the Banská Bystrica Theatre). She has initiated various interactive projects with schools and school institutions – she has introduced the Toddlerarium project offering interactive performances for toddlers and their parents. Since 2002, she has focused on the female experience from the gender point of view – this led to the creation of several projects, texts and productions and, in 2007, to the establishment of TWIGA (Theater Women Improvisation Gender Action). In 2011, she joined the European creative writing project called Platform 11+ and dedicated to the development of teenage creativity. At present, Iveta Škripková is the director of the Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica as well as the director of the prestigious International Theatre Festival Puppet Bystrica. She has also contributed to the establishment and running of several remarkable theatre and educational projects.
Description of her work:
Theatremaker Iveta Škripková started her professional theatre career as a puppet theatre dramaturg and later also as a playwright. Her artistic work can be reflected along two lines. The first is her work for children and youth in close tandem collaboration with director Marián Pecko – including several remarkable adaptations of Slovak and international fairy tales, as well as numerous devised dramatic texts for children and adults. The second, more engaged line of work strives towards progress in the perception of feminism or gender stereotypes in the Slovak theatre and social context, which has been a taboo in Slovakia (and puppet theatre in particular) for many decades. In 2007, Škripková founded the TWIGA Studio under the auspices of the Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads. It is the only studio of its kind that has become a platform for the making of projects dedicated to the gender aspect of the female experience as well as other, related themes. Her work in the TWIGA Studio often combines several methods – devised theatre, documentary and postdramatic theatre or cross-dressing, cross-voicing, cross-acting and gender studies (productions Diagnosis: Word; Ilona, Hviezdoslav’s Wife; Love Variations; The Realities of Dreams, among others).
Škripková’s interest in taboo themes is visible in her dramatic and directorial work for children as well. As far as the use of topical social gender issues in children’s theatre is concerned, exemplary productions include Annie the Rose and Tony the Bruise, or How Annie Became a Tomboy and Tony a Girlie Girl and (Dis)obedient Teddies in which the playwright and director in one sensitively uses metaphors in order to open issues of sexual differences. The productions rely on the director’s skilful use of wordplay, the ability to control the punchlines of individual scenes and the creation of attractive stage settings in a stage design that uses mobile props. She works with props with sensitivity and elaboration and relies on their multiple stage use. Škripková’s stage metaphors are decipherable enough and supported by intense and precise work with the actors. Because of the quality and uniqueness of her use and interpretation of the mentioned themes in the Slovak context, Škripková has been symbolically termed “the mother” of feminist theatre in Slovakia. Her productions are a platform for feminist appeals to start a dialogue about gender issues.
List of directed productions:
2002 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: A Lilliput Tale
2003 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Playing With Fairy Tales, The Paper Kingdom
2003 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Bolko and Bolka
2004 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Playing With Fairy Tales, The Lurching Urchin
2005 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Elfriede Jelinek: Women As Lovers
2005 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Uršuľa Kovalyk: Travesty Show
2005 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Pavol Dobšinský, Iveta Škripková: Playing With Fairy Tales, Rumpelstiltskin
2005 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Stage Reading – An Evening With the Aspekt Publishing House – Pavla Cebocli: Pavla’s Story
2006 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Playing With Fairy Tales, Annie the Rose and Tony the Bruise, or How Annie Became a Tomboy and Tony a Girlie Girl
2006 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Stage Reading – An Evening With the Aspekt Publishing House – Aglaya Veteranyi: Why I Am Not an Angel
2006 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Women’s Studies I–III
2007 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Julias Meinholm: The Emotional Education of the Snake Woman
2007 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Playing With Fairy Tales, The Bogeyman Tale
2007 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Why to Become an Actress
2008 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Playing With Fairy Tales, (Dis)obedient Teddies
2008 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková et al.: Powerand(r)ama
2008 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková et al.: Carping and Unravelling
2009 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iva Há: Written in the Dark
2010 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / TRIO BES: Snoops
2010 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Sofia de Ségur, Iveta Škripková: Playing With Fairy Tales, Sophie’s Troubles
2011 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Božena Slančíková-Timrava, Elena Maróthy-Šoltésová, Iveta Škripková: Love Variations
2011 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Jana Juráňová: Realities of Dreams
2013 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Diagnosis: Word
2013 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads, Banská Bystrica / Irena Brežná: Letter to the Black Son
2014 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Jana Juráňová: Ilona, Hviezdoslav’s Wife
2014 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / T. V. Recipes
2015 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: The Comma Story
2015 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Pa and Gu
2015 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková et al.: The Teaching of the Slovak Tongue
2016 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads, Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Stage readings – Women’s Live Library – live women’s newspapers and Marta Tikkänen: The Love Story of the Century
2016 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads, Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Stage readings – Women’s Live Library – live women’s newspapers and Virginia Woolf: Three Guineas
2017 / Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads, Banská Bystrica / Iveta Škripková: Indian Summer (scenes from the life of a woman according to Božena Němcová, and from the present)
A list of theatre plays (selection):
You Move Me So Much… (fragments from the life and work of Dominik Tatarka) (1992)
Don’t Cry, Anna (2001)
Fetishists (2005)
Soul-healing Sisters (2007)
The Emotional Education of the Snake Woman (2007)
Crumbs (2009)
Family Blues (2011)
Seňora (2013)
Indian Summer (2017)
Awards:
2017 / Grand Prix of the 2017 Nová dráma/New Drama festival, and the Bratislava Audience Award for War’s Unwomanly Face (Iveta Škripková – author of the dramatization)
2017 / Special Prize of the Association for Contemporary Theatre for Iveta Škripková and Marián Pecko for the concept of the festival Puppet Bystrica Tour 2016
Foreign language skills: French, English, Russian
Contact: iveta313@post.sk; www.bdnr.sk
Videos from productions:
The Emotional Education of Snake Woman, 2007
archive of the Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica
The video can be found at the following link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPcDCIWsOqY
Realities of Dreams, 2011
archive of the Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica
The video can be found at the following link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1TSAcQba4s
Ilona, Hviezdoslav´s Wife, 2014
archive of the Puppet Theatre on the Crossroads in Banská Bystrica
The video can be found at the following link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=I68xsfdJkxQ
