Katarzyna Warnke on the turbulence during her theatre education: `When I started to stand out, the problems started’.

In an intense interview with Żurnalista, Katarzyna Warnke repeatedly shared previously undisclosed episodes from her life. One of these stories concerned her time at the Krakow Academy of Theatre Arts. As she began to distinguish herself with her achievements, loved ones began to pull away from her.

Katarzyna Warnke and the complications in her relationship with her fellow students

The story she presented is heartbreaking. Warnke became friends with two female friends at university. They shared a dormitory. However, when Warnke started to become successful, her relationship with them started to become complicated.

This is a powerful story. I was friends with two girls. We lived together in the dorm. They were from A-B. In general, everyone I liked was from A-B. I was from C-D. In C-D there were bored and nerdy people. And I had these two friends. I’m not going to give names here, but if I did, you would associate. They were nerds to the core. Because, for example, I would say Pan Tadeusz and they would come up to me and say: `You haven’t learnt that midterm well. You’re underselling this group’. Artists. And there were two of them. They got along. I couldn’t do that. I decided to move to A-B,” Warnke recounted.

After moving to another group, Warnke organised a summer workshop with Krzysztof Globisz. After they ended, she received an offer from him to work with her. However, this was met with reluctance from others.

I remember the day of staging it. I liked Globisz so much that I got a role for the first time in my life and by my second year I was already playing regularly in ‘The School for Wives’ with him. And it became a mess. Because the rest of the year: “and why not us?”. And the mess happened after that, because of course my friends had already stopped being my friends. (…) I started to develop very quickly, thanks to the fact that I was already playing. I started to step into a leadership role in this new group. I helped my colleagues. (…) It was impossible to manage me. One of those colleagues was a leader before I was there.

Conflicts with students

As tensions grew, complaints about Warnke began to reach the dean. A meeting was organised to clarify these issues, and

they started complaining to the dean about me. Then they held a meeting where… This is the first time I have spoken about this publicly. I extend my warmest greetings to my disastrous colleagues. (…) The dean held a meeting. My whole year sits around this big table. And the dean starts that they did research on me. They asked the pedagogues if there were any problems with me. There weren’t, so the dean asks my colleagues what they have to say about me. Both A-B and C-D.

In response to these allegations, Warnke addressed several issues that were intended to cause controversy among her peers. The main aim was to defend her point of view and explain her behaviour. However, the confrontation with the group and the lack of support from others made the whole situation extremely difficult for Warnke. In the conclusion, she talked about how she decided to go through it all with her head held high, continuing her education and developing as an artist.