Polish Theatre Perspectives (PTP) is a new, peer-reviewed journal published twice yearly in English by the Grotowski Institute in Wrocaw. Its principal aims are to facilitate dialogue and exchange between Polish and international researchers, practitioners, and students, and to provide English-language readers with unprecedented access to texts and materials relating to Polish drama, theatre, and performance. (See www.ptpjournal.com for more information.) This inaugural issue of PTP opens with an extended section examining the theatre of the internationally acclaimed Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski. Warlikowski learnt his craft under the tutelage of some of the most prominent European directors, including Ingmar Bergman, Peter Brook, Krystian Lupa, and Giorgio Strehler, before establishing himself in Polish repertory theatre with several controversial productions in the 1990s. Over the past decade, Warlikowski has emerged as one of the most innovative directors in Europe, building a core ensemble of co-creators for whom each performance becomes an ongoing process of dialogue, research, and personal exploration. His theatre has increasingly sought to examine the ethics of exclusion and of post-traumatic memory in Poland and in Europe through performances that, among other key themes, address questions of individual suffering and isolation, gender and sexuality, and the Polish Jewish cultural heritage after the Holocaust and the events of the communist period. This issue of PTP presents the first extended examination of Warlikowski's work in English, and traces his development from a repertory director specialising in Shakespeare and Greek tragedy to his founding of the research-oriented Nowy Teatr in 2008. Elsewhere in the issue, in the 'Articles' section, Milija Gluhovic and Paul Vickers analyse works by Tadeusz Kantor, Andrzej Wajda, and Jan Klata that explore the cultural witnessing of two traumatic events in twentieth century Polish history: the 1940 massacre of Polish prisoners of war in Katyn forest, and the forced migrations of Poles and Germans at the end of the Second World War. In 'Encounters', Katarzyna Osiska introduces a talk in Krakow by the renowned Russian director Anatoli Vassiliev, who discusses his relationship to Konstantin Stanislavsky and Jerzy Grotowski, and Jean-Pierre Thibaudat and Beatrice Picon-Vallin conduct an extended interview with the 2009 Europe Theatre Prize laureate Krystian Lupa. In the PTP back pages, the 'Materials' section examines the release of the 10-DVD series of documentary films on the theatre and art of Tadeusz Kantor, which were published by Cricoteka with English subtitles from 2006-2008. Finally, in 'Comment', Elbieta Matynia, who recently established an annual, international political seminar in Wrocaw, reflects on cultural life and 'performative democracy' in the city during the 1970s and 1980s. This issue of PTP also includes a DVD of the first version of Tadeusz Kantor's internationally acclaimed production of The Dead Class, filmed by Andrzej Wajda in 1976. The DVD includes English subtitles, notes by Kantor, and photographs of the performance by Wojciech Szperl.