Andrzej Wajda's engagement with staging Shakespeare's plays began exactly fifty two years ago, with his first Hamlet in Teatr Wybrzeże in Gdańsk (1960). There were three more Hamlets to come, and the most recent Macbeth, staged in the renowned Stary Teatr in Cracow. However, the news of Wajda's Shakespearean street show in the city of Gdańsk, involving eighty actors and actresses, performing on twenty-two stages and recorded by twenty-three camera crews, may come as a surprise and in fact is something without precedence in Wajda's career. The reason behind the happening needs some explanation, because it is linked to an on-going theatre project which aims at building a 21st century version of an Elizabethan playhouse. Only on a surface level does this sound like a paradox or contradiction in terms. Andrzej Wajda, being the honorary patron of the project, has for many years been its ardent supporter, and at the news of the groundbreaking ceremony, planned for the 14 of September, 2009, he spontaneously came up with the idea of organizing an event, entitled The actors are come hither!, that would show his personal and the actors' engagement. Thus, six months in advance of the event, Wajda wrote a letter to all the actors he had ever cooperated with, in film, in theatre or on television, inviting them to take part in an artistic happening that would precede the official ceremony.