Tomasz Fogiel

Tomasz Fogiel was born on 1 January 1953 in Poznan, Poland. He was the son of the actor Aleksander Fogiel. He spent his childhood in Szczecin and Lodz, and completed primary and secondary school in Lodz.

In 1975 he graduated with a master's degree from the acting department of the Leon Schiller National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz. Decades later he added teaching qualifications, completing courses at the teacher education centre in Gdansk in 2006 and qualifying for school management roles in 2007.

Fogiel began his professional career at the Teatr Nowy in Lodz, where he worked from 1975 to 1979, and then spent six years at the Teatr Wybrzeze in Gdansk (1979 to 1985). His role as Maly in Slawomir Mrozek's Drugie danie earned him a SPATiF award at the 19th Kalisz Theatre Meetings.

In 1985 he joined the Danuta Baduszkowa Musical Theatre in Gdynia as a soloist. According to the theatre he had planned only a short stay, but he remained for more than forty years and became one of the pillars of its company, broadening his acting with singing and dance. Among his best known roles were Motel Kamzoil and the innkeeper Mordcha in Jerzy Gruza's Fiddler on the Roof, which he performed about 500 times; Herod and Peter in Jesus Christ Superstar; Old Mincel and Doctor Szuman in Wojciech Koscielniak's Lalka (2010); the Blind Man in Koscielniak's Chlopi (2013); and Jozef Siupka in Zly (2015). He also appeared in Les Miserables (1988), Man of La Mancha (1991), The Threepenny Opera (1992), Evita (1997), Chess (2000), Kiss Me, Kate (2006), My Fair Lady (2009) and Shrek (2011), among dozens of other productions.

On television he played supporting and guest parts in series including Daleko od szosy, Rodzina Lesniewskich, Radio Romans, Lokatorzy, Sasiedzi, Znak Orla and Pierwsza milosc. He was active in dubbing, including the Polish version of Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, and voiced Zdzislaw Beksinski in the documentary Beksinscy. Album wideofoniczny.

For many years he lectured at the Danuta Baduszkowa State Post-secondary Vocal and Acting Studio in Gdynia, the training school linked to the theatre. His students described him as a demanding but fair teacher, and he organised additional training such as fencing camps.

Fogiel came from an acting family: his father, Aleksander Fogiel, was a well known Polish stage and screen actor. He spent most of his adult life in the Tricity area, working in Gdansk and then Gdynia. Colleagues at the Musical Theatre knew him simply as "Pan Tomek" (Mr Tomek) and remembered him for his anecdotes, his advice on acting and a relationship with students that the company described as fatherly, sometimes strict, but full of warmth. Details of his private and family life were not widely publicised.

Tomasz Fogiel died on Thursday 15 October 2026, aged 73. His death was announced the same day by the Danuta Baduszkowa Musical Theatre in Gdynia on its social media channels and was reported by RMF FM, TVN24, Interia and trojmiasto.pl. The cause and place of death were not made public.

The theatre said it had received the news "with great sadness" and bade farewell to "a wonderful actor, a longtime colleague and an important part of our theatre family". The company's artistic ensemble described him as a nestor, a great actor, a man of the theatre, a teacher, a friend and the good spirit of the backstage. The theatre said it would announce funeral arrangements in the following days.

Over more than forty years Fogiel helped shape the history of the Musical Theatre in Gdynia, one of Poland's leading musical stages, appearing in dozens of its productions from the Gruza era of the 1980s and 1990s to Koscielniak's adaptations of Polish classics in the 2010s. He was regarded as the company's informal chronicler.

His honours included the SPATiF award at the Kalisz Theatre Meetings, the award of the Marshal of the Pomeranian Voivodeship on the theatre's 50th anniversary and the Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture Gloria Artis (2025). Through his teaching at the Baduszkowa studio he also helped train several generations of Polish musical theatre performers.