Dušan Vicen
Profile

A graduate at the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Mr Vicen went on to pursue studies in stage directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. As stage director he collaborated with a number of amateur drama companies (Theatre Ka in Tvrdošín, Once upon a time from Oravská Polhora, The cheerful pedagogues association). For a number of seasons he was with Trnava based amateur theatre Disk Kopánka (1993 – 2005), having won, with the ensemble, a number of festival awards at home and internationally (International Festival of Amateur and Independent Theatre – Prague, Setkání – Zlín, Jiráskův Hronov, Czech Republic; RAZEM – International Theatre Encounter, Bielsko-Biala, Poland; 4éme Festival de Vézelise 2006, France; The István Horváth International Festival of Amateur Theatres, Kazincbarcika, Hungary; 2nd international encounter of theatre companies 2002 Itajaí, Barazil). Mr Vicen was also engaged with theatre for children: his production The Story of the Real Gulliver received the 1995 Slovak Ministry of Culture Prize for the Accomplishment of the Year. It went on to represent Slovakia at the International Festival of Theatre for Children in Copenhagen. Mr Vicen is currently largely engaged with the SkRAT theatre as stage director, co-author and actor.

He is author of stage plays A rat or We are Not Any Cannibals, Forhaus, Fifty (with Vladimír Janček), Stroke the Dog... (Apotheosis on Emptiness) and Siluet b mol. He has also written radio plays The Unimportant Story, Don’t Make me Cry, A Short Night Shift and A Portrait of the Dead  and free dramatisations Ingenious Epoch According to Schulz (with V. Janček), The Bvlgakoff  Case (based on Bulkagov’s Master and Margarita). 1997 brought the publication of his collected short stories Homo joga (Itinerary from Orava) that earned him The Ivan Krasko Proze award. Mr Vicen is double laureate of The Alfréd Radok Prize for the Best Czech and Slovak Stage Text (1st place in 2002 for Stroke the Dog ...; 3rd place in 2003 for the text Siluet b mol). He is also the winner of the Slovak Radio Prize in competition Drama 2008 for the text The Pokers and Lickers and the 2017 Radio Devín Prize for the radio text Squat. In 2009 he received the 1st prize by the Slovak Literature Fund for an original radio play Recordings and 2nd prize for an original stage play Façade Ltd. In 2013 the Theatre institute in Bratislava published Plays a collection of his stage plays. 2017 saw him return to prose, having written the novel A touch with the Absolute.