Pavel Kohout

Pavel Kohout (born July 20 1928, Prague) is a Czech and Austrian novelist, playwright, and poet. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, a Prague Spring exponent and dissident in 1970s until he was expelled to Austria. He was a founding member of the Charter 77 movement.

Because he and other dissident theatre workers had been banned from working in the official theatre, he formed the company Living-Room Theatre with the actors Pavel Landovsky, Vlasta Chramostova, Vlastimil Tresnak, and his daughter, Tereza Bouckova to covertly perform an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in living rooms in Prague. Czech-born playwright, Tom Stoppard's "Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth" is inspired by these events.

His most notable play is the drama "Poor Murderer", that opened on Broadway in 1976. It is based on the short story "Thought" by Leonid Andreyev. [http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3868]