Following the success last September of the Witkacy event in London, organisers are hosting another such event, Witkacy 2010, in the United States at the end of this month. The event celebrates the 125th anniversary of the birth of Polish playwright, novelist, painter, photographer and philosopher Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, a.k.a. "Witkacy". And his was an amazing life, dramatic end, and with a cruel twist years later.
The event takes place between April 29 and May 1, 2010 in Washington DC. Radio ORLA.fm is proud to be a media patron.
Full details of this year's event are at: http://www.witkacy2010.com/

More about Witkiewicz:

During the 1930s, Witkiewicz published a text on his experiences of narcotics, including peyote, and pursued his interests in philosophy. He also promoted emerging writers such as Bruno Schulz. Shortly after Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany in September 1939, he escaped with his young lover Czesława to the rural frontier  town of Jeziory, in what was then eastern Poland. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, Witkacy committed suicide.

Witkiewicz had died in some obscurity but his reputation began to rise soon after the War, a war which had destroyed his own life and devastated Poland.

In the postwar period, Communist Poland's Ministry of Culture decided to exhume Witkiewicz's body, move it to Zakopane, and give it a solemn funeral. This was carried out according to plan, though no one was allowed to open the coffin that had been delivered by the Soviet authorities.

On November 26, 1994, the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art ordered the exhumation of the presumed grave of Witkiewicz in Zakopane. Genetic tests on the remaining bones proved that the body had belonged to an unknown woman — a final absurdist joke, fifty years after the publication of Witkacy's last novel.

Event:
PROGRAMME

Act I: Thursday, April 29
8:30-9:15 - Registration
9:15-9:30 - Opening remarks
9:30-10:20 - The Embassy of the Republic of Poland is Proud it Sponsor the Keynote Address:
Daniel Gerould: Witkacy and Conspiracy Theories
10:30-12:00 - Session # 1: Witkacy as an Artist: Within and Against Tradition
Chair: Daniel Gerould
Janusz Degler's Address & Intellectual Appendix (video)
Anna Żakiewicz: Witkacy - A Lonely Star in the Sky of Polish Art
Mark Średniawa: Discovering Witkiewicz's Real and Virtual Trails
12:00-13:30 - Lunch sponsored by The George Mason University Polski Department
13:30-15:00 - Session # 2: Witkacy: Portrait of an Artist
Chair: Anna Żakiewicz
Dorota Niedziałkowska: Witkiewicz's Self-Portraits as Manifestations of the Dandy
Margaret Kosmala Witkiewicz - Father and Son. The Double Portrait
Discussion: Witkacy the Artist
15:15-16:15 - Session # 3: Acting, Directing & Translating Witkacy
Chair: Mark Rudnicki
Daniel Gerould: Translating Witkacy
Kevin Hayes: Witkacy: Acting and Directing! An Polski Practitioner's Perspective!
19:30 - Staged Reading of In a Small Country House by S.I. Witkiewicz at the Flashpoint, Mead Theatre Lab, 916 G St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20,001th Produced by The Ambassadors' Theater Group.

Act II: Friday, April 30
9:30-10:20 - The Embassy of the Republic of Poland Is Proud to Sponsor the Keynote Address:
Marta Skwara: Witkacy and Slowacki: Intertextuality! New Revelations!
10:30-12:30 - Session # 4: Witkacy as and Dramatist:  Theatrical Encounters
Chair: Kevin Hayes
Christine Kiebuzinska: Witkacy and Ghelderode: Goethe'sFaust Transformed into a Grotesque Cabaret
Eve Wąchock: Traps of Identity in Witkiewicz's Dramas'
John Barlow: Witkacy's Music
Discussion: The Dramatist Witkacy
12:30-14:00 - Lunch
14:00-15:45 - Session # 5: Witkacy as and Novelist: Essential Conversations
Chair: Christine Kiebuzinska
Mark Rudnicki: The Profane and the Sacred in Insatiability
David Goldfarb: Witkacy and the Sublime: The Dominant Woman Reconsidered
Lech Sokol: Witkiewicz's Existence vs. Particular Conceptions of the Modern Identity (video)
Michal Pawel Markowski: Idle Talk: Witkacy, Heidegger and the Fall of Language
16:00-17:45 - Session # 6: Witkacy as and Philosopher: Origins and Development
Chair: Michał Paulł Markowski
Agnieszka Marczyk: The Witkacy - Cornelius Letters or How to Cure Gout with Transcendental Philosophy
Berczyńska Carolina: The Interplay Between The Only Way Out and Witkiewicz's Hauptwerk (Video)
Pawel Polit: The Philosophical Marginal Notes of SI Witkiewicz (video)
Mark Bartelik: Witkacy and Warhol
19:30 - Reception Dinner at the Kosciuszko Foundation Washington DC Office sponsored by The Embassy of The Republic of Poland

Act III: Saturday, May 1
10:30-11:45 - Session # 7: Witkacy - The Way Forward
Chair: Mark Rudnicki
Anna Brochocka: 45 Years of the Slupsk Witkacy Collection
Kevin Hayes and Mark Średniawa: Virtual Witkacy
12:00-13:30 - Panel Discussion: Witkiewicz's Vision of the Relationship Between the Individual and Society
Panelists: David Goldfarb, Kevin Hayes and Marta Skwara
13:30-14:30 - Lunch
14:30-15:00 - Wiktor Grodecki: Insatiability - The Voracious Desire to Adapt Witkacy for the Screen
15:00-17:30 - Film: Insatiability followed by a forum Discussion led by the Director Wiktor Grodecki
17:30-18:00 - Closing Comments

Epilogue, Sunday, May 2
11:00 - Tour in Polish of the National Gallery of Art Tours in Polish are Also available.