Oliver Issak

... is a dramaturg and freelance artist whose work in social design and performance art challenges traditional boundaries and activates public spaces through immersive, participatory experiences.

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Plays
  1. tonight (2025)
  2. Bogged down (2025)

Performances
  1. Until they are dead, they shall live forever (2026)
  2. The Dew Point (2025)
  3. How to Look at the Sea? (2024)
  4. Oasis (2022)
  5. Battlefield (2021)
  6. Safe Zone (2018)

Actions
  1. Monuments (2025)
  2. The Embassy of Utopia: Estonian Book 1000 (2025)
  3. The Embassy of Utopia: Radio (2023-2025)
  4. Translation Agency (2024)
  5. The Embassy of Utopia: Happiness for Everyone, Free of Charfe, and Let No One Be Forgotten (2024)
  6. The Embassy of Utopia: Longing for a Different Way of Being (2023) 
  7. The Shadow Council (2022)
  8. 33 Speeches (2021)

Dramaturgical Formats
  1. Two-Room Conference
  2. Senior Citizens' Theatre Club "Avangard"
  3. Dinner at the Dramaturg's
 
Presentations / Speeches
  1. Spatial Dimensions in Heritage | Creative Research Capacities (2026)
  2. International Conference "Dramaturgy – Mapping the Landscapes" (2025)
  3. Baltic Drama Forum (2025)
  4. Estonian Cultural Endowment's 100th Anniversary Dinner (2025)
  5. Riga Performance Art Festival "Starptelpa" | Curators' Assembly (2024)

Texts / Books / Writings
  1. Teatrielu 2025 (editor) 
  2. Artishok Biennale (critic)
  3. Värske Rõhk: How to Write Kindness? 
  4. sss
  5. Publiku kaasamise projekt 
  6. “Teatrielu 2020” (editor)

Baltic Drama Forum (2025)





The Baltic Drama Forum is an annual conference that travels between the Baltic countries, bringing together theatre theorists, critics, dramaturgs, and practitioners. The 2025 edition took place in Vilnius from September 23–25, hosted by Vilnius University and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, with keynote speakers including director Katie Mitchell and dramaturg Bryce Lease, alongside more than a dozen presentations from scholars and artists across the Baltics and beyond.


Title of my presentation
Paide 3000: Resistance Through Imagination in a Small CityFrom 2021 to 2023, I (Oliver Issak) worked as a dramaturg at Paide Theatre, a young municipal theatre in the geographic centre of Estonia. Paide, with its 8,000 inhabitants, is often seen as both symbolic and literal periphery. But for us, it became a place to ask questions: How can we return the ability to dream to a community that feels overlooked? And what role can art play in that process? Initially, Paide Theatre functioned like any (small) theatre house. But over time, our small team felt that this wasn’t enough. We wanted to work not just in the city, but with it. This impulse gave rise to Paide 3000, a long-term artistic project that sought to reimagine the relationship between theatre and community.

Full text of the presentation  is available HERE

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