Gábor M. Koltai (b. Budapest, 2. December, 1976) is a theatre director, translator, essayist, member of the public body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
He graduated from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in 1995-2000. He received his PhD summa cum laude from the University of Pécs, Hungary, where he wrote his dissertation on ’The Renaissance world view of stage horror’.
He has worked in theatres and with independent companies, from classical and contemporary texts to grand operetta, including the Móricz Zsigmond Theatre in Nyíregyháza, the Katona József Theatre in Kecskemét, the National Theatre in Szeged, the Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre in Timisoara; in Budapest with the companies of Studio K and the Hungarian Theatre. Among others, he has staged plays by Shakespeare, Goldoni, Kleist, Chekhov, Sophocles, Wedekind, Milán Füst, Arthur Miller, Howard Barker, Martin McDonagh, Ibsen and Emmerich Kálmán.
Koltai is a regular contributor to literary and professional periodicals (Holmi, Jelenkor, Filmvilág, Theatron, Színház, Játéktér). He specialises in the revenge tragedies of Elizabethan and Jacobean authors, which he has explored in his publications and on stage: in numerous essays he has examined the horror dramas by John Ford, Thomas Middleton and John Webster, several of which he has staged. A volume summarising his research on the subject is about to be published.
He has worked with Nóra Sediánszky on several occasions, including on reinterpretations of classic Hungarian dramas: in 2005, they produced a contemporary reinterpretation of Mihály Csokonai Vitéz's play Tempefői, and in 2013, together with Krisztián Peer, they produced a contemporary reinterpretation of Sándor Petőfi's tragedy The Tiger and the Hyena by Sándor Petőfi.
Koltai has translated both fiction and professional works, from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth stories to contemporary and classical drama. He is the Hungarian translator of Declan Donnellan's books on acting (The Actor and the Target, Corvina, 2021; The Actor and Space, Helikon, 2025).
His productions have been presented at several festivals, including POSZT, the National Theatre Festival in Pécs (The Two-Headed Beast; 2007, Songbird, 2014), the Bucharest National Theatre Festival (FNT) (Gardenia, 2013), the Timisoara Euroregional Theatre Meeting (TEST) (As You Like It, 2011; The Europeans, 2014), Theater World in Brno (As You Like It, 2011) and the Deszka Festival (Tragedy, 2010).
For The Danton Case, he was awarded the 2007 Budapest Municipal Theatre Prize in the category Best Director. His production of Philoctetes was made into a TV drama in 2010 and Gardenia by Romanian Television in 2015.
He was a lecturer at the University of Theatre and Film Arts until 2023, teaching acting and drama analysis in several classes. From 2023 he is director and a member of the Art Council of the Szeged National Theatre.