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Laura Vansevičienė photography

Daiva Čepauskaitė (b. 1967) is a poet, playwright and actress. She writes poetry and plays for children and adults. Originally, the author studied medicine and then took up theatrics at Kaunas Youth Musical Studio. She worked as an actress and literary manager at Kaunas City Chamber Theatre. She is currently a playwright at Kaunas National Drama Theatre. The author has an exceptional flair for language and form, perhaps thanks to her experience as an actress – her understanding of the characters and their presence on stage is excellent. Čepauskaitė won the Golden Cross of the Stage Award as the best national playwright for her play Pupos (Beans, 2007). The play centres on a middle-aged man and woman, their cramped relationship, and their attempt to be liberated and reach the sky, and is reminiscent of a popular fairy tale.  

Čepauskaitė’s play Lė-kiau-lė-kiau (Let-pig-let-pig, 2018) is written for young adults aged 14 and over. It is drawn from authentic stories of teenagers; the stories were collected from online forums, conversations with the teenagers themselves as well as the workers and volunteers of “Vaikų linija”, the children’s helpline. The play offers a variety of topics, mainly the problems and challenges of contemporary teenagers: bullying, irresponsible behaviour on social media, sexting, identity search, relationship puzzles (love, friendship, betrayal) and complicated parent-children relationships. The play was directed in 2018 by the young director Eglė Kižaitė at Kaunas National Drama Theatre.