He studied physics at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, between 1963 and 1969 he studied graphics at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, also film directing at the National Higher School of Film in Łódź and finally, theatre directing at the Ludwik Solski Academy for the Dramatic Arts.

In 1976, he made his debut as a director by staging Sławomir Mrożek's play The Slaughterhouse at the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków where he worked for many years.

[5] During his career he made a lot of notable productions based on texts of Robert Musil, Thomas Bernhard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Maxim Gorky or Witold Gombrowicz.

[13] The same year, he created an adapted stage play, Mo Fei, combining several works by author Shi Tiesheng.

Sebald, was cancelled by the Comédie de Genève and Festival d'Avignon as the director faced allegations of verbally abusing a number of team members involved in the project.

A pupil of Tadeusz Kantor, and himself a teacher of many artists – among whom we should mention Krzysztof Warlikowski, 10th Europe Prize Theatrical Realities – Krystian Lupa combines an academic training with an inexhaustible creative vein that has always been present in and distinguished his work, and has enabled him in the course of his career to take on and ingeniously adapt for the theatre the works of classic literary authors such as Robert Musil, Feyodor Dostoevsky, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Bernhardt, Anton Cechov, Werner Schwab, Mikhail Bulgakov, Friedrich Nietzsche.