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.

CV
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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)

Safe Zone 

(2018)




“We gather to weep and to remember; to laugh and to contemplate; to learn and to affirm and to imagine. To wonder at technical dexterity, and to incarnate gods. To catch our collective breath at our capacity for beauty and compassion and monstrosity. We come to be energized, and to be empowered. To celebrate the wealth of our various cultures, and to dissolve the boundaries that divide us."
/Brett Bailey, World Theatre Day Message (2014)/

Today's performance has seats for 125 people. In the hall are five actors. A lighting designer. A director. A set designer. A dramaturg. Perhaps someone else too. The only thing that unites us is that we made it here tonight. Here, to the theatre. We will not leave this hall for the next two and a half hours. We are together.
The theatre hall is at once a safe zone and a danger zone. Anything can happen.

The most important question: "Is there an intermission?" Yes, there is an intermission — coffee, cognac, and pastries will be served. Everything a theatre ought to offer. But this time, payment is cash only.

“Safe Zone” was Paide Theatre's opening production.




 




Director: Jan Teevet
Dramaturg: Oliver Issak
Scenography: Freda Purik
Performers: Kirill Havanski, Johannes Richard Sepping, Ursel Tilk, Joosep Uus, Grete Jürgenson
Sound: Kirill Havanski
Producers: Harri Ausmaa, Birgit Sitska
Photos: ...


Paide Teater, 2018Reviews

ARVUSTUS | Teatri kaitseala Paides – PDF
ARVUSTUS | Inimese kaitseala Paide teatri suurel laval – PDF
ARVUSTUS | Grupiteraapia Paide moodi ehk Piirideta kaitseala – PDF
ARVUSTUS | Kas kaitsepositsioon ja/või katsepolügoon? – PDF
RAADIO | Teatrivaht. “Kaitseala”, “AV Maria”, “Gesamtkunztwerk”
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