MIROSLAV RATAJ - BIOGRAPHY

My name is Miroslav Rataj and I was born on 2nd September 1943 in Zlín - a city which was later called Gottwaldov - now it is Zlín again.

 

I started to play at the puppet theatre “Dětská radost” in Gottwaldov when I was in the fifth year of the primary school. Then I studied at the secondary technical school in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm (graduated in 1961) where I fell in love with theatre in the Tesla national company club - and that’s how it all began - after one year of working as a vacuum technician in Prague I was admitted to the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) (on the first attempt!) and together with my classmates - for example the famous actors Jiří Klem, Oldřich Vlach, Luděk Sobota, Dana Syslová or a former archbishop of the České Budějovice diocese Jiří Paďour - I successfully graduated  and entered the world of theatre. I spent 11 years in the Amateur Studio of Oldřich Stibor State Theatre in Olomouc, 2 years at the Regional Theatre in Příbram, 6 years in Plzeň, 3 years in Hradec Králové, 3 years back in Olomouc - until the Velvet Revolution started.