Born in 1930 in Krakow. Co-founder of the Laboratory Theatre, serving as a major collaborator in years 1959 – 1982 and general director in the 1980s. Critic, writer, and long-term creative collaborator with Jerzy Grotowski. Later became a theatre practitioner himself, leading paratheatrical experiments and workshops in many parts of the worlds.

During Second World War, Flaszen lived in Lviv and then in Uzbekistan. He returned to Poland in 1946 and studied at the Polish Studies department of the Jagiellonski University. His debut as a critic came in 1948. Between 1950 and 1956, he was an editorial member of Zycie Literackie. He also collaborated with Przeglad Kulturalny. In 1952 he published New Zoil, or about schematics in Zycie Literackie, analyzing socialist realism (one of the first to do so in Polish press). The term wszystkoizm (all-ism), coined for purpose of analysis, has remained in the Polish language. Flaszen also invented the phrase one actor’s drama, which he used in 1959 while reviewing a solo performance by Wojciech Siemion of Wieza malowana.

The nearly-final edition of his first book, Head and Wall (1958), a tome of sketches and pamphlets, was confiscated by the Polish censorship. Flaszen is also the author of Pact with Devil  – series of essays and short stories exploring individual versus totalitarian systems (editions 1971, 1974, 1996 Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krakow; French edition – 1990 Paris, Edition la Decouverte). His book Theatre Sentenced to Magic (Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krakow 1983) includes texts on his collaboration with Jerzy Grotowski and his role in establishing the creative doctrine of the Laboratory Theatre. Together with Carla Pollastrelli, he published a book in Italian, The Laboratory Theatre of Jerzy Grotowski 1959–1969, Texts and Materials by Jerzy Grotowski and Ludwik Flaszen with a text by Eugenio Barba (Pontedera 2001). His commentaries on the Laboratory Theatre’s performances were published in 2006 in Misterium zgrozy i urzeczenia (edited by Janusz Degler and Grzegorz Ziolkowski, Grotowski Institute, Wroclaw 2006).

Flaszen has lived in Paris since the closing of the Laboratory Theatre in 1984. He directed his first performance in 1989, Dreamers after Dostoyevsky. He also directed Biesy albo Maly Plutarch zywotow nieudanych after Dostoyevsky at the Stary Teatr in Krakow in 1995. Flaszen continues to collaborate with the Grotowski Institute.

Ludwik Flaszen has been honoured with the Award of the City of Wroclaw, Odra Magazine Award, and, in 2000, a Commander’s Cross of the Republic of Poland.