Václav Havel (Playwright). I was born in 1936 into an entrepreneurial family. Because of my bourgeois background I wasn’t able to follow a humanities or artistic course at university, so for two semesters I studied Transport Economy at the Czech Technical University, before starting my military service 1957. After my return from military service in 1959 I started working as a stagehand. Starting in 1960 I worked alongside director Jan Grossman in various functions at the Theatre on the Balustrade until 1968. Apart from the several months in 1975 when I worked in the brewery in Trutnov and several years spent in prison, from 1968 up until being elected president I worked on a freelance basis. From 1956 onwards I voiced criticism and engaged in civic life. I was present at the birth of Charter 77, the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted, the petition A Few Sentences and I contributed as an author to many critical commentaries and underground publications. I was unable to publish anything openly. In November 1989 I found myself at the center of revolutionary events and became President of the Czechoslovakia. In 1992 I resigned from this position and in 1993 was elected President of the Czech Republic, a position which I held until 2003. I have written 15 plays, including the The Memorandum, Largo Desolato (filmed by Jiri Zizka in 1990), Temptation (produced by the Wilma Theater), and Leaving. I wrote the first version of the play Leaving in summer 1989. I then put this material away for many years and only went back to it in 2006. The play found its final form in 2007. Leaving is my first play in forty years where I am able to be present at the first premieres and preparations.
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