Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia
Rudakoff, Judith
Developmental dramaturg Judith Rudakoff has a BA from McGill University, an MA from the University of Alberta, and a PhD from the University of Toronto. She is a Professor Emerita at York University in Toronto, and works as a freelance dramaturg specializing in new play development.
Rudakoff has worked with emerging and established playwrights and artists throughout Canada, and in Cuba, Denmark, South Africa, England, and USA. She worked frequently with Canadian performance artist Nina Arsenault, and was the dramaturg for The Silicone Diaries, I Was Barbie, and 40 Days and 40 Nights. From 2006 to 2009, she the principal investigator for Common Plants: Cross Pollinations in Hybrid Reality (www.yorku.ca/gardens), a multidisciplinary cross cultural project funded by SSHRC involving artists and students from diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds, including Iqaluit, Nunavut and Cape Town, South Africa. Playwriting includes Beautiful Little Lies, set in Cuba, which received staged readings in Cuba at Teatro Escambray, Trinidad, Guyana, and New York at the Hotlink Festival; and The River (co-written with David Skelton and Joseph Tisiga), which premiered at Nakai Theatre in Whitehorse, Yukon in April 2011.
Books include Performing #MeToo: How Not to Look Away (Editor), Bristol: Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press/University of Exeter Press, 2021; Foreign Bodies: Performing Exile (Editor), Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press/University of Exeter Press, 2018; Dramaturging Personal Narratives: Who am I and Where is Here? (Bristol, Intellect Press/University of Chicago Press, 2015); TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault (Bristol, Intellect Press/University of Chicago 2012) which received Honorable Mention for the Patrick O’Neill Prize; Between the Lines: The Process of Dramaturgy (Playwrights Canada Press, 2002, co-editor Lynn M. Thomson); Fair Play: Conversations with Canadian Women Playwrights (Simon & Pierre, 1989, co-editor Rita Much); and Questionable Activities: Canadian Theatre Artists in Conversation with Canadian Theatre Students (Playwrights Canada Press, 2000).
Her articles have appeared in The Drama Review (TDR), TheatreForum, and Canadian Theatre Review. She is the creator of The Four Elements and Elemental Lomograms, transcultural methodologies for initiating live performance and visual art.
Rudadoff has won three consecutive NOW Magazine "Best of Toronto" awards in the category of university teaching. She was the first Canadian honoured with the Elliott Hayes Prize in Dramaturgy for her work on South Asian choreographer Lata Pada’s multidisciplinary work, Revealed by Fire.
She is a member of Playwrights Guild of Canada, and Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.
Last updated 2025-06-23
Since October 2002, Athabasca University has hosted the web site, with an editorial board of theatre scholars from across Canada.
To submit an entry, please consult the guidelines for submissions.
Email your submission to: Anne Nothof, Professor Emerita, Athabasca University.
The Encyclopedia collects and disseminates information on plays, playwrights and theatre practitioners. It does not respond to requests for information, auditions, bookings, or tickets.
The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia web site was originally conceived and developed in 1996 by Gaetan Charlebois—theatre critic, playwright, and actor.
