Born in 1995, Rodak is a theatre director and creator of works from the field of performing arts. He describes himself as a queer artist, focused on issues of non-normative identity and expression.
Before entering the Department of Drama Direction at the Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, Wojtek Rodak graduated in film production from the Film School in Łódź. As he admits, it was cinema and television that shaped his aesthetic sensibility for a long time, but it was only after seeing Warsaw Cabaret – a performance by Krzysztof Warlikowski in 2013 – that he became interested in theatre.
He has held directing assistantships with Wiktor Rubin, Michał Borczuch and Monika Strzępka. He made his debut in February 2020 with The Sailor, produced at the Jerzy Szaniawski Drama Theatre in Wałbrzych, based on a 1925 drama by the institution’s patron. During the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Młodzi w Starym (Young in the Old) series run by the National Old Theatre in Kraków, he directed an online performance of Interior, based on the symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck. During the lockdown period, he also initiated the project Rok, w Którym Przestałem Robić Sztukę (The Year I Stopped Making Art), a video work involving more than fifty artists, based on a text by French artist Paul Maheke. This project was discussed, among other places, in the monograph Lockdown Cultures published by UCL Press. Rodak has also worked at the New Theatre in Łódź: Kto Nie Ma Nic, Ten Może Wszystko (He Who Has Nothing, Can Do Everything) in 2021, and the 2022 performance Praktyki Widzenia (Practice of Seeing), inspired by Władysław Strzemiński’s iconic Theory of Seeing.
In 2022, as part of Warsaw’s TR Theatre’s Debut programme, he directed a production of Tom at the Farm, based on Michel Marc Bouchard’s drama, which became popular through Xavier Dolan’s film. The opportunity to produce the show at TR Warsaw was an award Rodak received as part of the 10th Young Directors’ Forum, where he presented his work PTAKI: Instrukcja (BIRDS: Instructions).
Rodak’s interest in minority experiences and non-normative identities is reflected in such projects as Wywiad z Wampirem (Interview with the Vampire),video work presented as part of the POLSKIE EIDS residency at the Warsaw Biennale, and Kolorowe Sny (Colourful Dreams), co-directed with Szymon Adamczak – a performance with the participation of queer Poznań youth created on the initiative of the Stonewall Group. In June 2023, his debut drama cHIMera – previously awarded in the second edition of the AURORA playwriting competition – was presented as a staged reading as part of the Criminal Queerness Festival during Pride Week in New York.
May 2023. Update: December 2024.
