Darko Lukić (born September 8, 1962) is a Croatian theatre scholar, writer, cultural theorist and playwright living and working in Germany.
[2] Lukić also publishes scientific papers and participates in international conferences and seminars and translates from English and Spanish language.
He was a member of the European jury of theatrologists for “Premio Europa per il teatro” award (2009), member of the jury for “Marko Fotez” theatre award of HAZU (Croatian Academy of Science and Arts (2008), president of the Board of Gavella Theatre (2007-2011), editor in Hrvatsko glumište (Croatian Theatre) magazine HDDU (2007-2009), artistic advisor of HAVC, Hrvatski audiovizualni centar (Croatian Audiovisual Centre) (2008-2011), artistic advisor of Ministry of Culture - Ministarstvo kulture RH and HRT (Croatian Radio – Television) for film (2006-2008), member of the Cultural Council for Performing Arts of Croatian Ministry of Culture (2001- 2004), president of the Theatre Committee of the City of Zagreb (2002-2004), member of the Council for International Cultural Cooperation of the City of Zagreb (2005-2007), and President of the Cultural Council for International Cooperation Ministry of Culture - Ministarstvo kulture RH (2013-2016), and member of Croatian centre of PEN International, member of IETM,[3] CAE,[4] ENCATC,[5] Memory Studies Association,[6] IFTR and EASTAP.
He continually published drama, ballet, opera and literary critics and reviews, and started working as a dramaturg in theatre and on television.
After graduation, he enrolled on postgraduate studies at Fakultet dramskih umjetnosti u Beogradu (Dramatic Arts Faculty in Belgrade), where he got his master's degree in Drama and Theatre (1990).
He continued publishing in different media, as well as working as a dramaturg in drama and dance performances and festivals all over former Yugoslavia (today's Republics of Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina).
He left Sarajevo during the war and went to Slovenia, and to Zagreb (Croatia) where he worked as a dramaturg (1995-1998), and then Artistic Director of Teatar &TD (1998-2002).
At the same time, he continued work on his education, and specialized as a Fulbright scholar at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University in New York 1997, then at the European Academy for Culture and Management in Salzburg 1995 (where he got the Diploma in cultural management), at ISTA Odin Teatret, Institute for Theatre Anthropology, University of Copenhagen 1998, and as playwright at The Royal Court Theatre in London 1996. and LA CHARTREUSE, 1994.
Since 2001, he has been a professor at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, in departments of theater management and production, dramaturgy and theatre theory.
Basic interest for exploring different forms of dynamic interaction between performance and all kinds of environment in which it occurs, as well as transdisciplinarity and interculturality shown in this book are being later developed in large number of Lukić's essays, studies and texts published in magazines and papers in numerous seminars, symposiums and conferences all over the world.
Critics agree there is no similar research in contemporary Croatian theatrological literature, either by its themes volume and scope, or by its complex interdisciplinarity.
Short stories in that book are mostly retelling and reinterpreting some of the mythological and cultural motives and are exploring topic of art and illusion in human life.
In extremely postmodernist and metatextual construction, the novel makes up new commentaries of great historical events and connects themes that are very far apart, spatially and time wise.
That novel, in the research of literary portal Op Art was recognized as the second most read novel in Croatia in the period 1996 – 2006, based on the data of sales and library usage.
The story of two couples, younger and older, who meet by accident in Europe at the end of the 20th century was evaluated by critics as “deeply emotional and at the same time intellectually sophisticated”.
In that novel, set in the contemporary surroundings, eight people try, in different ways, to resolve their life problems by using a psychic (fortune-teller), while at the same time a threat of terrorist attack is looming over.
Since 1990, a great number of Lukić's plays, ballet librettos and drama adaptations have been set on stages in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, United States, Romania, Venezuela, Germany, and Poland.
Apart from his own plays, Lukić wrote a considerable number of ballet librettos and made stage adaptations and dramatizations of great literary works, such as War and Peace[14][15] by Tolstoy, Madame Bovary by Flaubert, City and dogs by Mario Vargas Llosa, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Fortress by Meša Selimović and Eliah's chair by Igor Štiks.
He translated plays for theatre from English and Spanish to Croatian, such as Caryl Churchill, Tom Kempinski, Manuel Puig, Sergi Belbel and others.
'Male Stuff' from the Female Point of View; War and Warriors in Plays of Croatian Contemporary Female Playwrights, Works from Symposium «Drama Texts Today in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia and Montenegro: Possibilities of Dramaturgist Readings» Universite Paris IV Sorbonne/Faculty of Philosophy University of Zagreb, Paris/Zagreb, 10.