photo by Audrey Bizouerne

in more detail

Eszter trained as a dramaturg at the University of Theatre and Film in Budapest. She soon started working in different contexts, witha clear focus on multi-disciplinary work and a passion for moving across genres.

Eszter has written scripts for a variety of mediums, using improvisation material, devising techniques, verbatim and archive materials to create scripts.

Among other scripts, Eszter wrote a theatrical adaptation of ‘Seven Floors’, a short story by Dino Buzzati, which then became the basis of the libretto for a one-act opera composed by Albert Márkos. As a member of the writing team, she was involved in the screenplay development of two feature films, a drama based on a short story by Lyudmila Ulitskaya and a sci-fi inspired by a news article. On commission from Vaskakas regional puppet theatre (Győr, Hungary), she wrote an adaptation of the Cinderella story as a puppet play for teenagers.

Eszter worked on multiple productions with director and close collaborator Panni Néder, including a promenade performance about the year 1968 staged in a former warehouse, a biographical play based on the correspondence of renowned Hungarian author Gyula Krúdy and a family musical written by poet Daniel Varró, adapted from his popular book of contemporary poems.

Eszter worked as assistant director at the Hungarian State Opera with director Hartmut Schörghofer and conductor Adam Fischerand developed productions in Vienna with opera director Beatrice Lachaussée. In 2010, Eszter moved to Berlin with a scholarship, which allowed her to work in the dramaturgy department at the Volksbühne in Berlin, including on productions with the then Artistic Director Frank Castorf. In 2012, Eszter moved to Scotland.

Eszter continued working across borders. She worked as dramaturg with director Claudia Meyer on a production of The Merchant of Venice at the Nationaltheater Weimar. She continued her collaboration with Panni Néder including a site-responsive staging of Heiner Müller’s’ Mauser’ at the Open Society Archives building in Budapest and a political comedy by contemporary playwright Lajos Parti-Nagy first premiered as part of the Budapest Spring Festival.

Eszter translated Howard Barker’s ‘The Europeans’ for the Hungarian premiere of the play co-produced by Theatre Stúdió K (Budapest) and Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre (Timișoara, Romania).

In 2015, Eszter’s play ‘The People you Deserve’ was invited to the Women Playwrights’ International Conference in Cape Town. With support from an award from the Tom McGrath Trust, Eszter wrote the play ‘Passport to the Moon and Other Countries’.

In 2015, Eszter was selected to take part in collaborative residency Rough Mix, where she met Claire Willoughby. Eszter and Claire began working on ideas together, and soon started their company Snap-Elastic. Since 2017, Snap-Elastic has created a range of live performances and films/video, including ‘Puffin’, a climate disaster-themed play for children inspired by ‘Waiting for Godot’,‘GYOG!’, a video series for children commissioned by the National Theatre of Scotland; ‘EAT ME’, a dance theatre show about consensual cannibalism and award-winning arthouse film, that premiered at Manipulate Festival and Prague International Film Festival / Berlin Kiez Film Festival respectively; and ‘The BumBum Club’, a pop-up performance piece for young people in hospital. Snap-Elastic have recently premiered ‘Dussskkk’, a sensory music experience for teenagers with additional support needs. Snap-Elastic has received various awards including a Starter for Ten from National Theatre of Scotland, Awards for All Scotland, and multiple residencies from Nordland Visual Theatre (Norway). Eszter and Claire are currently co-artistic directors and they lead Snap-Elastic together with lead producer Isy Sharman. In 2025, Snap-Elastic became a multi-year funded organisation in Scotland.

With their productions of ‘Cockpit’ and ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, Eszter began her long-standing collaboration with Wils Wilson, one of the UK’s leading theatre directors. In 2019, Eszter and Wils started experimental company ghostbag together. As ghostbag, they have created ‘crowd’ an award-winning experimental short film, ‘triffid’, a site-specific audio experience and video installation presented at Hidden Door Festival 2023, the dance short ‘the way I missed the end’, and ‘the halcyon days’, a participatory community ritual. They are currently working on their third short film.

Between 2017 and 2019, Eszter collaborated with magician Kevin Quantum on three of his solo shows, including ‘Anti-Gravity’, which won Best Magic Show at Adelaide Fringe 2019.

Since 2016, Eszter has had the regular opportunity to curate, cast and direct festivals in various cities in China. Through these festivals, Eszter has worked with dozens of international performers across a range of genres, including physical comedy, clown, dance, magic, music, theatre and variety.

In 2019, Eszter directed the dance theatre show ‘And the Birds Did Sing’ written and performed by Christine Devaney and produced by award-winning dance company Curious Seed. The show was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe, where it received a Herald Angel Award and was runner-up for the Scottish Arts Award.

In 2020 and 2021, Eszter worked with director Ben Harrison on a stage adaptation of the Norwegian cult classic novel ‘Doppler’, produced by Grid Iron Theatre company. The show was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe 2021 and in Rogaland, Norway in 2025.

Eszter worked with puppetry company Vision Mechanics to create the script of their performance installation ‘The Fantastic Life of Minnie Rubinsky’, which premiered at Manipulate Festival in 2023.

In 2023, Eszter received an award dedicated to her professional development focusing specifically on her skills in choreography and movement direction. With support from this award, Eszter began to develop her own process of creating dance and movement shows working with a mix of dancers and non-dancers, including people with disabilities. An important highlight of this work was a residency in New York led by the Mary Overlie Legacy Project, where Eszter learnt more about the post-modern technique ‘Viewpoints’, which is one of the foundations of her choreographic process. Eszter is a member of the Work Room, an organisation for artists who work in dance in Scotland.

In 2024, Eszter was selected to take part in her second Rough Mix residency. During this residency, Eszter began working on ‘Horses’, an outdoor dance theatre show based on the story of Michael Kohlhaas, a medieval horse dealer. The finished show of ‘Horses’ will be presented in 2026 as a Snap-Elastic production.

In 2025, Eszter was commissioned by Hidden Door festival to create a site-specific show for their venue, a former packaging factory. ‘we have all been here – now into the light’ was a multi-disciplinary installation and performance created collaboratively with a small team including visual artist Valerie Reid, journalist Neil Cooper and composer Stephanie Lamprea.

Over recent years Eszter has had the opportunity to collaborate with a range of exciting artists, including choreographer/circus artist Sarah Bebe Holmes of Paper Doll Militia and composer Neil Tòmas Smith.

Eszter was recently selected for a residency at Nordland Visual Theatre in Stamsund (Norway), where she trained in sand animation techniques with award-winning filmmaker Naomi van Niekerk.

Eszter has recently created and released ‘glamoured’, a season of short videos in collaboration with musician hunda sound.