Krakowski Teatr "Variété", Kraków

Krakowski Teatr “Variété” is the musical theatre housed here in the former Związkowiec cinema-theatre building on Grzegórzecka Street. Its creation turned a long-pursued ambition into a city cultural institution: Janusz Szydłowski spent twelve years working to bring a theatre for lighter repertoire into being. Kraków’s council established it on the thirtieth of April 2014, and Szydłowski became its first director.

The curtain first rose on the thirty-first of May 2015 with Legally Blonde, directed by Janusz Józefowicz. Since then, this has become a home for musicals, music-led plays, comedies, revues, and musical concerts. The auditorium holds 364 people, while the stage has the machinery for ambitious transformations: a movable platform, a trapdoor, and dedicated sound and lighting systems.

The theatre’s recent work also marks a change from imported titles to making its own: Czarownice premiered here on the eighteenth and nineteenth of April 2026 as its first original musical, with music by Jakub Lubowicz and a book and direction by Jakub Szydłowski. In July 2025, Kamila Polit took over as director, with Jakub Szydłowski appointed artistic deputy director.