The Polish Year in Israel 2008-2009 opened on 9 April in the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv with the performance of "Madame Butterfly" by Giacomo Puccini, directed by Mariusz Treliński, featuring local soloists and ballet, as well as the Rishon LeZion orchestra conducted by Daniel Inbal. The performance will be presented in Tel Aviv between 9 and 22 April.

The special staging of "The Dybbuk" – one of the most outstanding plays directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski has been so far presented, among others, at the Festival d’Avignon and in Bouffes du Nord in Paris. "The Dybbuk" is a canonical text for the Habima theatre - since its foundation to this day. On the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Israeli State and the 90th anniversary of the Habima theatre, a project devoted to "The Dybbuk" is being prepared in the context of staging the play directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Poland, as a guest of honour at the Israel Festival, cordially invites to the outdoor theatre and music project "DJ Kuchnia" ["DJ Kitchen"] by Agnieszka Grygiel and Artur Sosen Klimaszewski from the Poznań group "a la teatr". The performance will take place as part of the Children’s Israel Festival in Holon. After the realization of the project at the Festival, all items and accessories from the performance will be donated to the Children Art Museum in Holon, where they will be available for children.

At the opening of the 17th International Puppet Theater Festival in Jerusalem, the Animation Theater from Poznan will perform their latest spectacle “Musical Box”. The spectacle is based on the Lithuanian script by Nijole Indriunaite.

From the 1 September till the end of November the Israeli Yiddishpiel Theatre from Tel Aviv invites you for the musical play "The Magician from Lublin", based on a short novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

An unusual spectacle „Salto Mortale” - black circus for six pianos and twelve actors is a co-production between the Clipa Theatre from Tel-Aviv and the Zone of Silence Theatre from Poznań. The project had its Premiere at the Malta Festival in Poznań, in Israel it will be staged in frame of Acco Festival of Alternative Theatre.

"Tales and Memory" is a time travel, filled with pain, concern and happiness, it is also a meeting of different cultures and common history: Israeli, Palestinian and Polish. Althought the Acco Festival of Alternative Theatre 2008 had been cancelled, the premiere of a joint performance produced by the Cinema Theatre from Michałowice and the Acco Theater was presented for the invited guests in the Acco Theatre Center.

Festival of Contemporary Polish Drama, which took place in Tmoona Theatre in Tel-Aviv featured contemporary post-Różewicz and post-Mrożek drama, which is still relatively unknown among the Israeli audience.  It touches upon historical events such as the Warsaw Uprising (Marek Kochan’s "Argo"), but also concerns the Polish-German relations ("Night" by Andrzej Stasiuk).

The turn of November and December will see the premieres of two parts of the spectacles which was be created as a result of cooperation between two directors: Michał Zadara from Poland (Współczesny Theater from Wrocław) and Yael Ronen from Israel (Habima Theater). The project will be the first attempt at discussing the Polish-Israeli issues in contemporary theatre by young directors. It will also be the first Polish-Israeli institutional theatre co-production.

The project  will comprise the lectures by many outstanding artists, theatrologists and drama teachers. The idea is to demonstrate various practices and theories applied in Polish theatre from the end of the Second World War until today. In the last week of January another lectures and workshop sessions followed by the reading of a drama will take place in Israel.

Four members of the Biuro Podróży Theatre from Poznań will come in April to Israel in order to conduct workshops in frame of The Bat Yam International Street Theatre Festival. There will be a closed workshop for the theatre-profile students of the Shazar high school, and open workshops for professional actors who are interested in the development of their skills with regard to acting on stilts in street theatres.

Having won the acclaim of critics and viewers at both the d’Avignon Festival in France and the Next Wave Festival by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, this world class adaptation of one of Levin’s best known works will be staged in the Cameri Theatre during the International Theatre Festival celebrating the Centennial of Tel Aviv.

The Biuro Podróży Theatre once again challenges the notions of traditional repertoire theatre with an open air version of Macbeth brought roaring to life by spectacular mobile set design, motorcycles and fire. Organized in conjunction with the centennial celebrations in Tel Aviv, performance will also feature workshops for youths.

As part of the 18th edition of the International Festival of Puppet Theatres in Jerusalem, the Opolski Teatr Lalki i Aktora will present its oft-awarded performance “DRUMS – 4 dances”. The two shows with live music performed by the student’s percussion trio Perkursors will take place on 12 and 13 August.

Following the March premiere of the “Absinth” by Magda Fertacz, another Polish drama entered the repertoire of the Tmuna Theatre in Tel Aviv. The theatre hall was filled to capacity on 28th and 29th of August, during the premiere of Michał Walczak’s “Journey to the Inside of the Room”, directed by Wojciech Klemm. The performance featuring young Israeli actors, scheduled for November and December, is the last theatre event organized as a part of the Polish Year in Israel.

The play “Absinth”, based on a drama by Magdalena Fertacz, was presented in Israel on several occasions. “Absinth” returns this season to the stage of the Tmuna Theatre. The play had its premiere in December 2008 during the festival of Polish Drama in Tel Aviv. The drama was first presented at a directed reading session and met with such an enthusiastic response from the audience that, encouraged by the success, the director Maor Zagouri and a group of young actors decided to prepare a fully-fledged performance.