Edgars Niklasons is a theatre director, playwright and stage designer who started his professional career in 2011 at the Latvian National Theatre and independent theatre Dirty Deal Teatro, and for the last 8 years has been active in staging children’s and youth performances at the Latvian Puppet Theatre, Rēzekne Theatre Joriks, M. Chekhov Riga Russian Theatre, Liepāja Puppet Theatre, various independent professional theatre projects etc.
The largest theatre production for young audiences that Niklasons staged was the applied theatre performance Surviving Monday ((Iz)dzīvot pirmdienu) in 2019, where pupils also performed parts alongside professional actors and helped in creating the dramaturgy. It was a story about bullying and youth on the autism spectrum (still a sensitive topic in Latvia), loosely based on true events. Plots explaining the importance of empathy in everyday life also appear in other shows of Niklasons for children and young people.
Niklasons acquired his knowledge of theatre art at the Latvian Academy of Culture, the Art Academy of Latvia and the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, Czech Republic. In theatre, Niklasons synthesizes aesthetics of objects and puppet theatre with elements of physical theatre, looking for a symbolic, metaphorical aspect in his works, as well as practically experimenting with various substances such as flour, clay, etc., thus showing the variable and unpredictable nature of theatre.
For the last couple of years, his performances for children and youth have been nominated as performances of the year at the Latvian annual theatre prize Player’s Night (Spēlmaņu nakts). Together with playwright Rasa Bugavičute-Pēce, he received the Player’s Night special prize Lost Son (Pazudušais dēls) in 2011 in the category of best Latvian original dramaturgy for the performance The End. A Performance (Izrāde “Gals”), directed by Elmārs Seņkovs.
