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Michal Spišák
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Michal Spišák (1963) started staged directing with university ensembles focused on small productions, some of which have successfully participated in the most prominent competitions. The best perceived productions included, for example, Bedbug (FAUX PAS, Nitra, 1985) and The Little Shit (Condurango, Nitra, 1986).

He graduated in aesthetics and art history from Comenius University in Bratislava in 1987. He then enrolled in the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he studied stage direction. In 1994, he completed his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where he later worked as a pedagogue – an assistant professor – and where he also completed his doctorate.

After graduation, he took a job at the Trnava Theatre (the present Ján Palárik Theatre in Trnava), where he worked as a stage director from the 1994–1995 season until the 1996–1997 season. In 1995–1996, he was also the theatre’s artistic director. Starting in 2004, he regularly worked as a guest director at the Jozef Gregor Tajovský Theatre in Zvolen. At the start of the 2010–2011 season, he became the company’s artistic director, a position he held until March 2012.

His collaboration with independent theatre companies includes such successful productions as August Strindberg’s Miss Julie (2002) and Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy (2004).

He authored several musical productions – from J. A. Benda’s classicist melodramas Medea and Ariadne on Naxos (Bratislava Music Festival, 2002), through production of one-act operas, including Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri and Marián Lejava’s Loved by God (2016), the operetta The Bat (2018) at the State Theatre Košice, all the way to an opera production for children staged at the Slovak National Theatre – Slavo Solovic’s Mouflon Ancijáš (2023).

Spišák was a guest director at many theatres in Slovakia, including the Andrej Bagar Theatre in Nitra, the Aréna Theatre in Bratislava, Karol Spišák’s Old Theatre in Nitra, the Spiš Theatre in Spišská Nová Ves, the West Theatre in Bratislava, the Jonáš Záborský Theatre in Prešov, the Alexander Duchnovič Theatre in Prešov, and the Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav Theatre in Bratislava. He translated some of the staged plays himself. His collaboration has included such Czech companies as the Prague City Theatres – Rokoko, the Central Bohemian Theatre in Kladno, and the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc. Since 2025, he has been the artistic director of the drama company at the Silesian Theatre in Opava. He also works as a dubbing director.