Director Jan Frič (1983), a sleeping member of the Společnost doktora Krásy society, is one of the most outstanding theatre personalities of his generation. He has worked with both chamber, alternative theatres (A studio Rubín, Masopust, Divadlo X10) and large theatres (National Theatre Brno, Klicperovo divadlo). His original cabaret Velvet Havel (at 2014 Flora) caused a sensation when it won all the theatre critics' awards.
From 2017–2022 he was the in-house drama director of the National Theatre, where he was invited by the then artistic director Daniela Špinar. Frič has realised a number of remarkable projects there, including his unique take on the classics Misanthrope, Oedipus Rex (both 2019) and Faust (2018), as well as productions of contemporary texts The End Light (2020) and The Father Watches Over the Daughter (2022). His adaptation of Gorky's drama Vassa Zheleznova and The Bacchae were awarded Production of the Year 2021 and 2023 at the theatre critics survey.
In spite of all his successes in 2023, he stepped away from the performing arts. “The reason is that, as a freelancer, I can no longer make a living at current fee rates. I’d have to do three times as much work as fits into a single year,” he said in an interview with Czech Radio Vltava in 2024. He eventually returned to directing.
In his work, Jan Frič explores metaphysics and the contradictions of human existence, themes also addressed in his original production Nothing Needs to Be Done Any Longer (Divadlo v Dlouhé)—which was also featured at the 26th festival edition in 2023. He is a long-standing critic of overproduction in Czech theatre and the alarming underfunding of the artistic professions. He addressed this critical issue in his original production BurnOut or Burn! already in 2019 and in 2025, In 2025, together with Kamila Polívková, he initiated the founding of the association and the informational website divadlo.pro.