Aleš Valášek

DI Aleš Valášek, Architect, winner of the prestigious British Lindbury Prize for Stage Design and recipient of the German Musical Theatre Award 2023 for Best Costume Design (Dällebach Kari, Thunerseespiele), is an architect, stage designer and costume designer who works internationally in the fields of musical theatre, opera, ballet, drama and film. He studied architecture and urban planning at the Technical University of Liberec and costume design at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, and completed further studies at the London College of Fashion and the renowned Motley Theatre Design Course in London. In 2022, he received several Regional BroadwayWorld Award nominations (Best Costume Design) for Titanic, Anastasia and The King and I. 
He has designed sets and costumes for more than 100 productions at various European theatres and festivals, including Evita and Pippin (Staatsoperette Dresden), Mary Poppins (Thunerseespiele), Sweeney Todd, Anastasia and Titanic – The Broadway Musical (Musiktheater Linz), the Klangwolke spectacle (Linz), Aspects of Love (Theater Münster), The King and I (Seefestspiele Mörbisch), Parade (Theater Regensburg) and Singin' in the Rain (Landestheater Salzburg), as well as opera and ballet repertoire such as Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Minkus' La Bayadère, Adams' Giselle, Dvořák's Rusalka, Bizet's Carmen, Puccini's Turandot and Monteverdi's Orfeo. 

In 2024, he made his US debut as costume designer for The Sound of Music, directed by Francesca Zambello at the Houston Grand Opera. 
Previous projects include Little Shop of Horrors (set and costume design), Zorro by the Gipsy Kings (set design), Green Day's American Idiot (set design), Curtains by John Kander (set design) and Next to Normal (set and costume design). In 2019, he created the set and costumes for the operetta Polenblut at the Odessa Academic Theatre of Musical Comedy. In 2018, he designed the costumes for the German-language premiere of An American in Paris in Linz, followed by a tour of Germany. and in 2010 he worked personally with Alain Boublil, creator of Les Misérables, on the Czech premiere of Marguerite – the Musical. 
In addition to his theatre work, Valášek has also realised exhibition design projects, including the award-winning permanent sculpture exhibition at the Hořice Museum in the Czech Republic (2019); between 2016 and 2017, he was an external lecturer in costume design at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU), and his artistic career was portrayed in the documentary film Follow Your Dream (Jít za svým snem...) ... directed by Hana Pinkavová for Czech Television (ČT, 2014).