David Košťák

was born in 1991 in Prague. He graduated in Theory and criticism of theatre in DAMU (Theatre Acadacemy) in Prague. Apart from his own writing he also translates from plays from english and he is dramaturg of Theatre LETÍ. He started to write his own plays during his studies but he debuted in 2013, when Theatre LETÍ performed his short play Fresh Love. The play already dealed with topics that he works with quite often in his work – man responsibility at the level of interpersonal relationships, but also his responsibility for a state of todays world. In his plays he often works with remarkable metaphor and with elements of magic realism, that are at a starting point of a plot. It can be said especially about his „space trilogy“, which contains: Taxistyx (Theatre LETÍ) about mother that runs away from her family responsibility via taxis in which time passes more slow; Over the spilled milkyway (Czech Radio, Theatre Karlovy Vary) and his adaptation of a story of the famous dog My name is Lajka that should educate the youngest audience about manipulation of totalitary regimes.

His work is quite varied when it comes to genre. Among his plays there can be found post-dramatic plays (Taxistyx, Heart belongs to jali) intimate relationship dramas (Over the spilled milkyway), plays for children (My name is Lajka, radio western for teenagers No country for young men, family musical The Chroniclers – brief history in musical) but also adaptations of classic literature (Lady with Camels, Don Quijote’s Awakening, The Chronicle of death foretold, Solaris). Despite the diversity of his plays and different audience groups David Košťák still has distinctive voice due his significant work with language.

He started to write plays on comission quite recently but he still saves some time for writing that is not meant to concrete theatre. At this moment he writes play with big cast for Švandovo Theatre in Prague Downotwn – modern myth about city that tries to get wealth from local mines so hard that it starts to fall into the ground. From his own iniciative he writes intimate relationship drama A Bird Woman from utopian world where people had forbidden birds to migrate.