Melita Forstnerič Hajnšek
Author, editor and journalist. She was the editor of the culture section of Večer and its supplement, V soboto. She has written a series of portraits of the Slovenian diaspora and has done extensive research on Slovenian emigration. She was a contributor to the monograph V vrtincu nasprotij published to commemorate the 80th anniversary of SNG Maribor theatre. She is currently participating in two projects: Leksikon kulture in družbe v Mariboru and Po poteh slovenskih književnikov. Her articles have been cited in various encyclopaedias of emigrant literature. She has recently hosted round table discussions about culture, new music, library science, the European Capital of Culture, and conversations with renowned people from the world of culture. She has been a member of various juries, including the Večernica Award jury, the Veronika Award jury and the jury that gave the award for a debut book at the Slovenian Book Fair. She is the Chairperson of the Book Committee with the Office for Culture of the City of Maribor.
Thomas Irmer
Dramaturge, theatre critic and editor. From 1992 to 1996 he taught at the University of Leipzig, and since 2003 he has been teaching at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University in Berlin. From 1998 to 2003 he was the editor in chief of the monthly Theater der Zeit, and from 2004 to 2008 a dramaturgical advisor for the international theatre season at the Berliner Festspiele. His books include Frank Castorfs Volksbühne (2003) Die Bühnenrepublik - Theater in der DDR (2003) and Luk Perceval - Theater und Ritual (2005). He is the author and co-director of four documentaries on theatre: Die Bühnenrepublik - Theater in der GDR (2003), Europe in Pieces (2004), Born 1968 (2008) and Heiner Müller (2009). He is a regular contributor to Theater heute (Germany), Didaskalia (Poland), Shakespeare (Norway) and Maska (Slovenia).
Amelia Kraigher
Art critic and journalist, also works as a dramaturge, editor, copy editor and translator. Since 1997 she has been writing primarily for daily newspapers (Dnevnik, Večer), radio (Radio Študent) and professional periodicals (ČKZ). She was the editor on the culture and the humanities desk at Radio Študent (2000-02) and a co-founder and member of the editorial board of Maska (1997-2006). She has participated in several professional theatre gatherings, symposia and round table discussions. She is co-editor or author of several entries related to theatre and dance in the Veliki slovenski biografski leksikon (2008). From 2000 to 2004 she edited the publications for and organized professional meetings at the Week of the Slovene Drama and was the leader of the international symposium, Umetnost, kultura, mesto, at the Maribor Theatre Festival (2009). She was a member of the Grum Award jury (2006, 2007) and the Šeligo Award jury (2010), worked as a dramaturge for Drama SNG Maribor (2003/04, 2004/05), and as the program director for the fourth Gibanica Festival of Slovene Dance (2009), the fifth Slovene Biennial of Puppet Artists (2009) and the Puppets international festival (2010). She is a member of several expert committees for theatre arts at the Ministry of Culture of the RS (2002 - 05 in 2009 - 11), the City of Ljubljana (2004 and 2007 - 09) and the European Commission program, Culture 2000 (2005).