András Istvan Demeter

András Istvan Demeter studied Hungarian-language theatre, film and television acting at the Tîrgu Mureș University of Theatrical Arts, graduating in 1992, and went on to take an M.A. in Cultural Management at Ecumest, Dijon, France. He also holds a Law Degree from the Tibiscus University of Timișoara. At the age of just twenty-three, he was appointed Director General of the Hungarian State Theatre in Timișoara, becoming Romania’s youngest managing director of a public theatre and the first to be appointed based on the submission of management projects. From 1993 to 2005, he transformed a minority-language institution on the brink of closure into an internationally renowned theatre. In the same period, he was the founder and director of a comedy festival held in Timișoara, which became one of the most important street-theatre events in Central Europe during its run from 1996 to 2002. From 2010 to 2012, András Istvan Demeter was the Chairman and Director General of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company, and in 2013 he was appointed Head of the Romanian National Television Production Company.

A well-known and versatile actor, Demeter András István has a number of outstanding achievements to his name. For two consecutive seasons, he played the part of Lojko Zobar in The Gypsy Camp Vanishes into the Blue, performing in both Hungarian and Romanian, as well as lines in Romany, in a production for which he also co-wrote the music. Demeter won international acclaim for his performance of Alessandro de Medici in Alfred de Musset’s Lorenzaccio, the “French Hamlet”, and also appeared in the original Hamlet as Claudius. During his career he has also played Hamlet-like figures, including Faust in Christian Dietrich Grabbe’s Don Juan and Faust, Caligula in Albert Camus’ play of the same name, and Posthumus Leonatus in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. He has the distinction of having performed leading rôles in productions of Shakespeare in no fewer than three different languages: Hungarian, Romanian, and German. In the hit musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet produced by the National Operetta Theatre in Bucharest, he sang the part of Friar Lorenzo, reprising the rôle in Hungarian in a subsequent production of the show staged in Budapest. András Istvan Demeter has appeared in numerous feature films, television serials, and sitcoms produced in both Romania and Hungary. In 2011, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.