Boadella studied dramatic art at the
Institut del Teatre of Barcelona, at the
Centre Dramatique de l'Est (
Strasbourg) and corporal expression in
Paris. As a student, he was part of Italo Riccardi's
mime artist company. In 1962, when he was only 19 years old, Boadella founded the theater company in Barcelona. The company was founded as a partnership with his colleagues and
Anton Font. Boadella would go on to develop his entire career as an actor, director and playwright under Els Joglars, writing more than thirty plays. His works tended to have a strong critical and satirical charge, especially in relation to perceived established powers, most frequently the
Catholic Church. The critical tendencies of Boadella's works have led to controversies and conflicts with political authorities of different sign. On 2 December 1977, after the release of , a satire of the life and execution of , Boadella was imprisoned and subjected to a
court-martial for the alleged offense of insulting the Army. The day before the hearing, he staged a spectacular escape from prison and took refuge in
France. Returning to
Spain in the 1980s, he continued to create controversy with works such as
Teledeum and
Ubú president, which presented strong criticisms of
Jordi Pujol and
Salvador Dalí. Apart from his theatrical curriculum, he has created and directed several television programs for different networks, and is the author of the books
El Rapto de Talía (DeBolsillo, 2000) and the memoir
Memorias de un bufón (Espasa Calpe, 2001). In 2003, he wrote the screenplay for and directed the film '''', a caricature of the last months of general
Francisco Franco. A great fan of
bullfighting, and a public defender of the art of cúchares, Boadella has frequently placed the emotion of the bullfighting ritual above the rest of the arts. In December 2006, he premiered a work in Madrid in the format of a medieval debate entitled
Controversy of the bull and the bullfighter, where reasons for and against the tradition alternate. His support for bullfighting has earned him the admiration of important figures in bullfighting, including
José Tomás and
Enrique Ponce, as well as criticism from anti-bullfighting sectors. In his memoirs, Boadella rebuffs the criticism of the latter groups: in Madrid:
Rosa Díez, Albert Boadella and
Fernando Savater. In September 2007, his memoir
Adiós Cataluña. Crónicas de amor y de guerra won the 24th Premio Espasa de Ensayo awards. At the presentation of the book, he explained that his goodbye to Catalonia was not metaphorical, but real: he announced that he would not work again in Catalonia before the end of the boycott suffered by his works in the region. Since 2009, he has been the artistic director of the
Teatros del Canal, following an offer from the President of the
Community of Madrid,
Esperanza Aguirre. On 11 September 2012, he announced that the management of the company Els Joglars would be transferred to . The announcement was made during the presentation of the 2012-13 season of the , with which Els Joglars has produced
Miguel de Cervantes' play
The Dialogue of the Dogs. In December 2012, he was awarded the
Alfonso Ussía awards in the category of Person of the Year, together with
Arturo Fernández. In 2017, he received the 20th Pepe Isbert National Theater Awards, granted by Amigos de los Teatros Históricos de España, and the 13th Joaquín Vidal national university awards in bullfighting, awarded by the Círculo Taurino Universitario Don Luis Mazzantini. == Ideological trajectory ==