Born in 1969 in Vilnius. In 1993 graduated Lithuanian Music Academy, theatre directing (under direction of Jonas Vaitkus). His first performances, created while yet studying – a trilogy based on works of early 20th century Russian avantguardists Daniil Kharms and Aleksander Vvedensky There To Be There, The Old Woman and Hello Sonya New year (1990-1994) won acknowledgement in Lithuania and abroad. These performances explored total absurdity of being, automatism and inertia in relationships, fear and alienation.
Gradually Oskaras Korsunovas turned to the analysis of the socio-cultural environment of his contemporaries – he started directing contemporary drama performances. This was a new phenomenon in Lithuanian theatre of the time, which struggled to find its identity after radical social and political changes (in 1990 Lithuania broke free of half a century long Soviet rule and re-established an independent state). In 1997 Oskaras Korsunovas directed a play P.S. File O.K. by Sigitas Parulskis, Lithuanian poet and playwright of his generation. The artistically complex performance reflected on the Soviet past through a distinctive actualisation of the Biblical myth of Abraham and Isaac. In 1998 the director took up the tragic and controversial Roberto Zucco by Bernard-Marie Koltès.
These performances stood out sharply in the context of the Lithuanian theatre of the time, and were the last ones to be created by Korsunovas under the roof of National Academic Drama Theatre. In 1999 the director together with other like-minded artists established an independent theatre — Oskaras Korsunovas Theatre or OKT. It had to be the theatre that would not limit itself to aesthetic quests, but rather search for contacts with the people undergoing drama in the vicinity of new time. Within two years large repertoire of the new theatre was prepared. It includes both the modern dramaturgy and the classics: Shopping and Fucking by Mark Ravenhill, A Midsummer Night‘s Dream by William Shakespeare, (both in 1999), Fireface (Feuergesicht) by Marius von Mayenburg, The Master and Margaret by Mikhail Bulgakov, (both in 2000), Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, 2002, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, 2003, Playing the victim by Oleg and Vladimir Presnyakov, 2005, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, The Lower Depths Depths by Maxim Gorky and others.
Oskaras Korsunovas belongs to the generation of directors that attracted attention of organizers of many international projects and initiatives after the fall of the Berlin Wall as the source of energy of new theatre. Since 1990 Oskaras Korsunovas has staged almost thirty performances both, in Lithuanian theatres and theatres abroad. Due to international success Oskaras Korsunovas can continue his work in his homeland, presenting the Lithuanian audience new names of contemporary dramaturgy and new interpretations of classics.
Early in his artistic career Oskaras Korsunovas created his personal style and established the concept of his theatre. Korsunovas takes the chaos, paradox, absurdity and fragmentation of present-day reality and turns it into the main meaning-generating principle, thus giving the breath of contemporary life to the theatre. Korsunovas is a winner of the Lithuanian National Art and Culture prize, Meyerhold prize, Europe Prize New Theatrical Realities, and the laureate of Lithuanian theatre seasons as well as many international festivals. His latest work The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky was awarded as a best performance of a year 2010.
