Jan Růžička

Biography

After graduating from the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Brno, Jan Růžička enrolled at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, completing his drama direction studies in 1974 under the guidance of M. Hynšt. He was subsequently engaged permanently at the theatres in Opava, Uherské Hradiště and Most, as a stage director, designer, dramaturge and head of sets. Since 1982 he has been a freelance designer, creating costumes and sets for more than a hundred productions, primarily for the stage directors J. Kališová (The Two Widows, La traviata, Eugene Onegin, Rusalka, Così fan tutte, La notte critica, Manon Lescaut), O. Ševčík (Invitation to the Chateau, Atilla, Undina, Funny Girl, Cyrano de Bergerac), M. Schejbal (Golem, Der Zigeunerbaron, The Mousetrap). Furthermore, he has worked on a number of Czech and co-production films (e.g. Svoboda’s Scalpel, Please!, Drha’s  Sensitive Places, Herz’s The Galoshes of Fortune and The Frog King, Troška’s The Princess from the Mill I and II, and Hannah Kodicek’s A Pink for the Butterfly), co-production and foreign TV films and series (Gagman I-VI, The Greatest Pierrot I-VI, The Coward, Father, White Against the Sky) and foreign films (Filemon und Baucis, The Sleeping Beauty, Young Ivanhoe, etc.). He has also worked on animated films, written song lyrics and scripts, and occasionally directed theatre plays. He has displayed his creations within independent (in Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Villach), as well as collective, exhibitions. At the National Theatre in Prague, he has worked with the stage director Jana Kališová and the set designer Miloň Kališ on the productions of The Two Widows (1996), La traviata (1998) and Don Giovanni (2000).