Kujtim Spahivogli, theater director, lecturer, People’s Artist, was born in Lushnja. Head of the “Jordan Misja” Artistic Lyceum. He studied directing and graduated from the State Institute of Theatrical Art (GITIS) , in Moscow (1956). He started working as an actor and director at the People’s Theatre; lecturer at the High Institute of Arts from 1960. In 1973 he was convicted by the IV Plenum of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Albania and sent to work as a worker in the district of Fier; then, as a culture worker in the villages of Tirana. Among the most successful roles he performed as an actor are: Hamlet (1960), Selim in the drama “Fisherman’s Family” and in the film “Oshtime on the coast” (1966). As a director, I tend to use a conventional language, such as staging the comedies “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (Shakespeare), “Banja” (Mayakovski), “Carnivals of Korça” (Spiro Čomora) at the Theater of Nations in Skopje. He created organic symbioses where conventionality, plasticity, visuality, symbolism and naturalism tried to merge naturally (the shows “Much Ado About Nothing”, “The Strange”, “Squad Drowning”, “Optimistic Tragedy”, “House on the Boulevard ”, “Events at the factory” etc.). He successfully experimented with elements of scenography. Kujtim Spahivogli initiated the establishment of the Youth Theater near the High Institute of Arts, thanks to which possibilities for theatrical alternatives were created. He wrote the drama “A friend of our class”, a sensational success in 1970-1972, as well as poems, essays, etc. He passed away in 1987. (In the photo: Kujtim Spahivogli)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, pages 2376-2377.
Photo: © National Experimental Theater “Kujtim Spahivogli”
Graphic processing: AHCF
