Tamás Szirtes earned his degree in directing from Tamás Major's course at the College of Theatre and Film Arts in 1968. He was a member of the József Attila Theatre from 1968 to 1972 and of the National Theatre of Miskolc from 1972 to 1973. He has been a stage director at the Madách Theatre since 1973, and the theatre's director since 2004. From 1977 to 2005 he taught drama students at the College of Theatre and Film Arts. He received the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 1998, the Theatre Critics' Award and the Pro Urbe Budapest Award in 2006 and the Kálmán Nádasdy Award in 2008. In 2009 he won the Kossuth Prize. He has gained renown as the director of numerous musical theatre productions, including Mamma Mia!, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Producers, The Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, Les Misèrables, Smiles of a Summer Night, Oliver!, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
