Özgür Özgülgün

An art-history desk, then a flowerpot street

Özgür Özgülgün was born in Istanbul on 9 May 1973, an only child, and did his primary and secondary schooling in the city before taking the theatre course at the Müjdat Gezen Sanat Merkezi. He stayed on at the centre afterwards, working for two years as an assistant in art history — an unusual detour for someone who would later argue that literature, not technique, is the foundation of everything a stage does. His professional acting began in the 1995–96 season with Çiçekli Saksı Sokağı at the Hadi Çaman Yeditepe Oyuncuları stage.

Television did the rest. In 1996 he played Oğuz in the series Gurbetçiler, which is the credit most Turkish reference entries still lead with, and he became a familiar face through advertising, the Rinso campaign included. Comedy series followed over the next decade and a half — Avrupa Yakası, Geniş Aile, Akasya Durağı — and the standard filmographies log screen credits running from 1995 to 2014. None of that is the spine of his working life, though; the stage and the writing are.

The Şafak Sezer line

The film work matters mainly because of who it put him next to. Özgülgün appeared in Kolpaçino 4.4, directed by Şafak Sezer, which drew 1,764,402 admissions in its first four weeks. By February 2024 he was preparing to start shooting on a new entry in the Kutsal Damacana series.

That connection explains where he is standing in autumn 2026. Sezer is the lead of the touring production Özgülgün is currently in, and the two have now carried a film-comedy partnership onto a theatre stage.

Fifteen books, and a reader he refuses to talk down to

The writing began with three children's books published between 2009 and 2012 and has not stopped: by the time he sat down with Kalem Kahve Klavye he had more than fifteen titles out, across Büyülü Fener, Nova Kids, Hayalperest Çocuk, Uçan Fil and Uçan At. Two of the early ones, Minik Oyuncunun El Kitabı and Efendi Çocuk Can Ersin'in Okul Maceraları, were written for his son Can, born in 2005 during his marriage to the actress Buket Dereoğlu.

Cesur Sivrisineğin Dostluğu, a 24-page picture book, came out through Okuryazar on 11 February 2024. His most recent is Tiyatro Müzesi for Uçan Fil Yayınları, illustrated by Elif Sakallı, in which a drama class visits a theatre — a book that does exactly what he does in schools, where he teaches drama and performs stand-up sets for children.

His stated method is plain enough: he calls the readers friends rather than children, says he will not send a publisher anything he does not personally stand behind, and tests material through public readings and stage adaptation before it goes anywhere near print. He also insists on dramaturgy — close analysis of the text — as the non-negotiable part of the craft, whether the text is a play or a picture book.

Aut: the writing that does not flatter anyone

Özgülgün's name appears as co-writer, with Alper Kul, on Aut, directed by Çağrı Turnalı and staged by Tiyatrolog. It is an in-yer-face piece about five friends — Zehir, Ateş, Fidel, Öcü and Boza — whose lives intersect at a stadium gate before a derby. It runs 100 minutes and carries an 18+ restriction, and versions of it are logged in his stage record in 2011, 2018 and 2024.

Fuldem Özkan reviewed the Tiyatrolog production for Mimesis on 25 January 2025. She praised the cohesion of the nine-strong cast and the authenticity of the stylised set, and noted that the staging deliberately dissolves the line between performers and audience. Her reservation was about the genre rather than the execution: she asked, in print, whether removing the audience's safe distance and then subjecting it to relentless violence produces engagement or simply numbness. She found the rap score well matched to the play's temper, and thought the cheering at the interval undercut what the production was trying to do.

The same reference record credits him as writer and performer on Uykusuz, first logged in 2014 and revived in 2020, and as an actor in Tuhaf Bir Pazar Günü from 2016.

Fifty-five minutes alone with Sait Faik

The piece he is proudest of is the one he does by himself. Hayatı Hikâye Olan Adam Sait Faik is written and performed by Özgülgün and directed by Senan Kara: one act, 55 minutes, no other actors. It avoids the chronological-biography trap entirely. Instead of walking through Sait Faik Abasıyanık's life, it follows his characters — the fishermen, the out-of-work, the islanders and back-street Istanbul of the stories — and settles on the writer's loneliness and exposure rather than his bibliography. The conceit is a ferry crossing and a walk through island streets in pursuit of people who only exist on the page.

It has been touring steadily. Summer 2025 dates took it to the Atatürk Kültür Merkezi in Istanbul on 26 June and Kulis Sanat Tiyatrosu's Panora stage in Ankara on 3 July. It returned to the AKM Çok Amaçlı Salon for two nights on 4 and 5 February 2026 at 20:00, and plays the Tofaş Bursa Anadolu Arabaları Müzesi on 6 November 2026, also at 20:00. Announcing the summer run, Özgülgün said theatre has no season and will carry on wherever there is an audience, which he framed as simply existing together.

His case for the work is consistent across interviews. Theatre, he told Tercüman, is a communication business, and the problem with Turkish theatre at the moment is that the experienced people are leaving it. He wants the gap between stage and audience closed, and he is planning further Sait Faik adaptations aimed at younger audiences using 3D mapping. On tiyatrolar.com.tr the solo currently sits at 5.3 out of 10 from 16 user ratings — a cooler reading than the local press notices it has collected on tour.

Now: a birthday, a blackout and a cake knife

Karanlıkta Kumpas opened on 30 August 2026 in Aliağa, as part of the third Aliağa Sanat Günleri run by the municipality. It is written by Ali Erkan Ersezer and directed by Ebru Kara, with set and costume design by Candan Günay, lighting by Kemal Yiğitcan, music by Kemal Alpan and production by Sanart. The mayor, Serkan Acar, marked the occasion by noting that Şafak Sezer was back on a theatre stage after twenty years away.

The premise is a comic locked-room mystery. A snowstorm cuts off an isolated luxury farmhouse where six people have gathered for the sixtieth birthday of Evren, an investment adviser. The candles are about to be blown out when the lights go; Evren goes down with a cake knife in his back. Five suspects are left — the housekeeper, the estranged wife, the business partner, the partner's much younger wife and the trusted associate — each with money, infidelity or revenge behind them. Özgülgün is one of an eight-strong cast alongside Sezer, Şebnem Özinal, Zeynep Kankonde, Burak Alkaş, Deniz Oral, Ömür Arpacı and Bensu Begoviç.

It is the busiest thing on his schedule. Biletix lists dates on 3 November at the Bostanlı Suat Taşer Salonu in Karşıyaka, İzmir; 8 November at the AKM Aspendos Salonu in Antalya; 9 November at the Merkezefendi Belediyesi Kültür Merkezi in Denizli; 10 November at the Selçuklu Kongre Merkezi in Konya; and 11 November at Trump Sahne in Istanbul. Biletinial shows the run continuing to 29 December, with the Sait Faik solo threaded through it on 6 and 12 November and 4 December.