Miloš Horanský was an important figure of Czech directing in the second half of the 20th century, one of the founders of the Club of committed non-partisans and also the author of several collections of poetry.
He was born on June 14, 1932 in Veľké Bytča, Slovakia, completed his elementary and high school education in Kroměříž, and in 1950-54 he studied directing at DAMU Prague and JAMU Brno. After graduation, he worked in theaters of Nové Jičín, Opava and Ostrava, in 1953-1968 he was director of the EF Buriana Theater in Prague.
In 1968, he co-founded the Engaged Non-Party Club, in whose activities he was very actively involved, which earned him a temporary ban from working in the theater at the onset of normalization. In 1970, together with František Hrdlička and Zdena Bratršovská, he co-founded and directed the experimental White Theater, then worked at the West Bohemian Theater in Cheb, where he was also artistic director.
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After recovering from a serious car accident that almost cost him his life, in 1973 he became the artistic director of the FX Šalda Theater in Liberec, where he created a distinctive era over the course of ten years, during which time he built a high – quality ensemble of actors with whom he staged a dramaturgically demanding repertoire, including contemporary works, the creation of which he initiated.
He also brought a number of contemporary poets to the Liberec Theater for Sunday Poetry Afternoons, which he performed regularly. He was a director who excelled in working with actors and his inspiring approach to text.
He was the artistic director of the ABC Theater
After Liberec, he worked briefly in the Municipal Theater in Kladno and then in the Municipal Theaters in Prague, where he was artistic director of the ABC Theater in 1991-93.
Horanský’s collaboration with the Viola Theater was long-standing and consistent, where he created a number of notable productions, including Máchův Máj with Barbora Hrzánová, the play about Božena Němcová I can’t help but love with Tatiana Dyková , Human Voice with Vilma Cibulková and Shakespeare’s Holiday Mail, where he also performed with Martin Hilský and Hana Maciuchová. He has also collaborated with a number of other theatres.
His work in Czechoslovakian and Czech radio and television was also significant, where he often participated in debates on art. He has also appeared as an actor in various films and television productions. From the 1990s he worked as a teacher at DAMU, where he was appointed professor in 1997, and in 1994-97 he was dean of DAMU.
He also wrote verses for children
In addition to his stage career, Horanský was an important representative of Czech poetry. He has published since 1960, in addition to his own work, reviews of poetry and prose. As a poet, he has published several collections (Lunovrat, Grafické básné, Amortale, Ruce Goliášovy, Tykavka, Pálení hlyny, Textamenty, etc.), in which he enriched Czech poetry and language with a number of poetic novelties and new poetic metaphors.
His poems had a strong intellectual and playful character, with a lyrical spirit he touched the motifs of childhood, love, the challenge of death, nature and its life cycle. He also wrote verses for children, in which he also liked to play with the meaning of words. He christened his latest collection, Dlužní knihy miści, in 2016. He not only wrote poems, but also staged them in Prague’s Reduta, Divadle Na zábradlí, Viola and Lyra Pragensis.
He has published his reflections on art in numerous newspapers and magazines, including the daily Právo. He also held various public offices, in the years 1990-1991 he was vice president of the Slovo branch of the Theater Village, and from May 1992 to spring 1994 he was president of the Association of Independent Writers K. 89.
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