I was born on 22nd November, 1944, in Orosháza, Hungary. I went to primary school there. I started secondary school in Vásárosnamény and continued in Budapest in 1961. I took my final exams with distinction at Kaffka Margit Grammar School for Girls.
As a winner in the National History Competition for Secondary School Students I was admitted to the Faculty of Arts of Eötvös Loránd University without having to take an entry exam. I graduated as a teacher of history and Hungarian language and literature in 1968 with distinction.
In 1976, with the special permission of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and the Czech Ministry of Education, I started the major in puppet dramaturgy and direction at the Puppetry Chair at the Faculty of Dramatic Art of the Academy of Muses’ Arts in Prague. I was a special full time student there for three years, with an individual academic programme. I received a university leaving certificate and wrote my thesis in the Czech language, entitled The Living Actor as a Phenomenon on the Puppet Stage and His Effect on the Structure of the Performance in 1978.
On returning home I did not find employment, there being only one puppet theatre at the time. In the end I got a permanent post at the National Theatre. From 1980 to 1983 I worked as a dramaturg and a literary adviser at the Budapest Theatre for Children. (For the studio there I wrote Puss in Boots, which has, since then, broken the record of performances.) In 1983 I worked as a contractual literary adviser with Bóbita Puppet Theatre in Pécs. My children’s and puppet theatre plays and translations from between 1988 and 2005 have been shown in several theatres, puppet theatres and on TV.
From 1983 to 1994 I worked at the Hungarian Institution for Education where I was engaged in teaching and examining puppetry, organising and administering the festivals and life of amateurs as well as writing academic materials.
I am the originator and, for 15 years, the organiser of the National as well as the International Nativity Play (Betlehemes) Meeting, which has developed into a distinguished parade of the winter festive seasonal games in the Carpathian Basin and which led to further regional meetings home and abroad. From 1993 I was the institutional leader of the Winged Dragon Week International Street Theatre Festival in Nyírbátor as well as the originator and leader of the Puppeteer Short Course organised for Hungarians over the border.
I retired on 1st August 2005.
Since 1988 I have worked as a dramaturg and puppeteer in a multi-transformed alternative theatrical formation within the framework of a company first under the name Prolihistrió, then Még Theatre, and finally, for 11 years, Hattyúdal (Swan song) Theatre.
