Krešimir Dolenčić was born in Zagreb in 1962. He graduated from the Pavao Markovac Secondary Music School, Piano Department, and Classical Grammar School in Zagreb. He earned his degree from the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art in 1988. He got involved in theatre in secondary school, in the Classical Grammar School drama section, where he was in charge of music. In his first year at the Academy, he founded the LIFT theatre company (The Lying and Fantastic Theatre) with several fellow actors, which performed two of his plays (I Married a Witch and Once Upon a Time in Small Town) in the following few years, and Marin Držić’s Uncle Maroje at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival in 1984 and at the Zagreb Histrion Summer. After completing his studies, he directed in numerous theatres in Croatia (Croatian National Theatres in Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek and Varaždin, the Gavella City Theatre, the ITD Theatre, the Zagreb Youth Theatre, the Komedija Theatre, the Zagreb Puppet Theatre), at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Split Summer Festival, the Rijeka Summer Nights, and all Croatian festivals.
He has directed around sixty plays by authors like Pinter, Držić, Kolar, Galin, Shakespeare, Giraudoux, Ilf and Petrov, Vidić, Wilde, Machiavelli, Ana Tonković Dolenčić, Bertold Brecht, Molière, Verne, Gogol, Feydeau, Belbel, Doyle and others. He is particularly interested in staging Croatian classics and contemporary authors. Some of his most successful productions were performed in various Croatian dialects (Kajkavian, Chakavian, local idioms of Dubrovnik, Hvar and Krk islands, Dalmatian hinterland and Međimurje). As a Fulbright Scholar, he teaches acting to students of singing and final year students at Rice University in Houston. He also taught acting at Trinity College in London and the Academy of Music in Zagreb. He has directed about fifty operas and other works, including Verdi’s Rigoletto and Aida, several times, Puccini’s Triptych and Madama Butterfly, Mozart’s Così fan tutte and The Magic Flute, Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex, Purcell’s Indian Queen and Dioclesian, Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites several times, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, several times, La fille du régiment and L’elisir d’amore, Gotovac’s Ero the Joker, Zajc’s Nikola Šubić Zrinjski, Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah, Tijardović’s Aquarel of Split several times, Gounod’s Faust several times, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, several times, and William Tell, Lully’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, Bradić’s Crux dissimulata, Bersa’s The Cobbler of Delft, Bizet’s Carmen, Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges etc., in Croatia, Slovenia, England, the USA and China. Many of them remained on theatre repertoires for years; for example, Croatian operas Ero the Joker and Nikola Šubić Zrinjski have been on the repertoire of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb for thirty and twenty-nine years respectively. The Legend of the Rooster, performed under the Old Town in Đurđevac every year, is the biggest regularly performed show in Croatia, with over 350 participants. It holds the status of intangible cultural heritage, granted by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.
As a long-time director of the Gavella City Theatre Zagreb, he brought many young actors to the theatre and, in cooperation with the Zagreb City Council, thoroughly reconstructed and renovated the theatre building. In this period, twenty-five directors from Croatia directed at the Gavella, one Croatian play was premiered each season, and many young musicians, choreographers, stage designers and distinguished directors from other countries worked in the theatre. Dolenčić is a professor at the Acting Department of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, teaching the second, final year MA students. Several of his graduation exam productions have been staged at prestigious theatre festivals in Croatia and abroad. He has received around thirty national and international awards for his work (the Judita Award, the International Small Scenes Theatre Festival Rijeka, several Golden Laughter Awards at the Days of Satire Festival, several Gavella Evenings Awards, the Marul Award, the Naj, Naj Festival Award, the Boris Papandopulo Award for Best Play, Gumbek’s Days Award, Bobi’s Days Award etc.).
He received the Denis de Rougemont Award for Best Young Artist from the European Festivals Association. He is a multiple winner of the Croatian Association of Dramatic Artists Award, and was awarded the prestigious Tito Strozzi Award. The actors, singers and stage and costume designers who worked on his productions received dozens of awards at all Croatian festivals and the Croatian Association of Dramatic Artists Awards. He was awarded the Order of the Croatian Interlace, the Homeland Gratitude Medal, the Order of the Croatian Trefoil, and twice the Order of Danica Hrvatska with the image of Marko Marulić. He received the 2018 Vladimir Nazor Award for his direction of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Croatian National Theatre Zagreb. During the last thirty years, he has worked as a scriptwriter and director of numerous events, such as opening and closing ceremonies, sports events and large concerts. In Zagreb and elsewhere in Croatia, he worked on over a hundred events, as a screenwriter, director or producer. He wrote and directed the opening ceremony of the Asian Beach Games in Muscat, Oman, which was broadcast live across Asia. In 2022, he wrote and directed the Pelješac Bridge opening ceremony.In addition to many foreign artists, Dolenčić regularly invites Croatian artists to work on his projects as authors or performers. He has been permanently employed at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb since 2010, currently as associate professor, holding courses for graduate acting students. Several exam productions created under his leadership were performed on professional stages and festivals (the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Split Summer Festival, the Days of Satire, the Gavella Evenings, the Makarska Summer, the Vidra Theatre, the Actors’ Festival, the Venice Open Stage Festival). He is a member of the Croatian Association of Dramatic Artists.
