Apparently, sir, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl - The newest social-artistic project of Iga Gańczarczyk is an attempt to create a narrative for little girls and with their participation, allowing them to present themselves and the world that surrounds them from their own perspective. The project was inspired by stories by Virginia Woolf and similar stories and films, affirming women’s stories and relationships: those of sisters, friends, playmates. The script is largely based on improvisations and stories told by the young participants of the project. The show is a journey through various narrative forms: diaries, secrets, notebooks of the ‘write in me’ kind, accompanied by non-verbal attempts to express emotions and impressions through body and movement. What emerges is a colourful, multidimensional world full of secrets, girlhood dreams and challenges. 

The project was awarded Radio Kraków quality mark in 2014.

The production is a part of the Summer in Theatre project realised by Zbigniew Raszewski Theatrical Institute and financed from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Summer theatre workshops for children took place between 28 June and 31 August 2014 in 28 different places throughout the country. Every day for two weeks the participants worked to prepare a show under the supervision of professional artists, divided into teams specialised in acting, costume and stage design, music, documenting and marketing, and technical issues. At the end of the two weeks, the productions were staged in a theatre, municipality culture centre or city space.

The workshops were a wonderful opportunity for the children to learn how to use the language of theatre, but most of all how to creatively express themselves. For professional artists it was a unique chance to share their work experience as well as to learn about needs and sensibilities of their young audience.

This year’s participants of the programme: 

Iga Gańczarczyk – dramaturge, director and editor (she supervises the series of theatrical publications at Korporacja Ha!art publishing house). She studied theatre studies at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and dramaturgy at PWST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Cracow. She worked with Krystian Lupa (Factory 2, The City of Dream), Paweł Miśkiewicz (Chekhov’s Three Sisters), Bruno Lajara (Nowa Huta. The Experience), Agnieszka Holland and Anna Smolar (Provincial Actors) and Maciej Podstawny (Różewicz’s Moles and Birds of Paradise). She directed a show for children entitled Winter Tales, based on Andersen’s tales at the Polski Theatre in Bydgoszcz (the production was awarded Hans Christian Andersen International Prise in Odense) and a show with children entitled Piccolo Coro dell’Europa at Łaźnia Nowa Theatre (the production got the July Radio Kraków quality mark and was presented during the 6. Divine Comedy International Festival in Cracow). 

Agata Otrębska – coach and project manager, the initiator and manager of various research, training and personal development projects being part of the EU Framework Programs, programmes commissioned by the World Bank as well as by Polish local authorities. She was the director of two consecutive editions of the Women’s Personal Development Festival PROGRESSteron in Katowice. She graduated from the School for Leaders of Civil Society programme of Polish-American Freedom Foundation, American Embassy in Poland and the US Department of State. For years she has been working for various NGOs. For six years she was a member of the board of Stowarzyszenie Siemacha – the biggest Polish NGO working with youth and children.

Vocal training – Olga Mysłowska

Educational workshop: Agata Otrębska

‘On Tuesday 10 June, a group of 17 female students disappeared without a trace.’ Soon afterwards they were found in Cracow’s Łaźnia Nowa theatre, where together with Iga Gańczarczyk they took part in the Summer in Theatre programme, creating their own show inspired by Virginia Woolf’s writings and their own personal experience. The artists decided to give voice to a generation that is seldom heard in theatre. And it turned out that children have important things to say about themselves and their relationships with others. Apparently, Sir, You’ve Never Been a 13-Year-Old Girl is a beautiful, wise, wonderfully presented show.

Michał Centkowski, Newsweek

The cheeky title Apparently, Sir, You’ve Never Been a 13-Year-Old Girl informs us right from the onset that we will be dealing with a world that is not easily accessible, in which boundaries are shifting, which operates according to its own principles. The gentlemen in the audience have indeed never been 13-year-old girls, the ladies were but can they still well remember this age of growing out of childhood with its rituals, fears, favourite pastimes? Łaźnia Nowa’s production, prepared in cooperation with teenage actresses, allows us to look into this world. The girls are militant, they do not like to hear that they are not supposed to do certain things and that some believe them inferior to boys. They treat boys as an another tribe and watch them curiously. Sometimes they are ruthless with one another, which becomes especially clear in a scene resembling a TV talk show, in which they ironically speak about selfies, Facebook hates, compulsive dieting and swallowing tapeworms.

There is no doubt that it is no easy thing to be a 13-year-old girl, but watching a show about it is a delight.

Joanna Targoń, Gazeta Wyborcza Kraków