Ivana Sajko was born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1975. Writer, playwright and guest lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Zagreb. Co-founder of the BADco. theatre company and editor at FRAKCIJA - International Magazine for Contemporary Performing Arts. Ivana Sajko performs and produces her own plays, experimenting with interdisciplinary approaches to the problems of writing and performing theatre texts. She has received numerous prizes, including: State prize for drama texts Marin Drzic for “Rippen/Wände” (2001); State prize for drama texts Marin Drzic for the theatre text “MISA ZA PREDIZBORNU SUTNJU, MRTVACA IZA ZIDA I KOPITA U GRLU” (2003); Croatian theatre prize for a radio production based on the theatre text “Bombenfrau” (2004); Croatian theatre prize for a radio production based on the theatre text “Europa” (2005), that also ranked among the top ten radio plays at the Prix Europa Berlin 2005. Plays published by Verlag der Autoren: “Orange in den Wolken” (1998/2001), “4 trockene Füße” (1999/2001), “Rippen/Wände” (2000/2002), “Archetyp: Medea” (2000/2007), “Bombenfrau” (2003/2004), “Europa” (2004/2006), “Rio Bar” (2005/2007). Ivana Sajko lives in Zagreb and Istria.
In 2000, five actors graduating at the same time from the Maastricht School of Acting wrote a letter to Johan Simons. They asked him if, and under the wings of ZTHollandia, they – as a young company – could make theatre-on-location. Simons agreed and a spark ignited between his company and Jonghollandia, the name given to the budding actors’ collective. Now, six years later, the collective has renamed itself ‘Wunderbaum’ and has a double home-base: Productiehuis Rotterdam and Johan Simons’s NTGent. On their roll of achievements are a list of prizes (last season the Mary Dresselhuysprijs), numerous productions were selected for The Theatre Festival (“Welcome in My Backyard“,“Rollende Road Show“), and a first bundle of scripts was published under their own name. Wunderbaum made a television film (Maybe Sweden) but primarily a great number of productions at very diverse locations, from army tents to roof apartments, abandoned fish-mines and shopping-centres. Last season, on their 5th birthday, Wunderbaum presented a selection of the productions they found most relevant in Ghent and Rotterdam. The idea for this retrospective came from the festival ‘The (International) Choice of the Rotterdam Schouwburg’, which immediately offered inspiration for the title of the programme: “The Wunderkeuze” (“Wunderchoice”).
