Karol Wojtyla, better known around the world as Pope John Paul II, spent much of his early manhood in pursuit of a career in the theatre. Although his chief interest was acting, he also wrote plays. His work grew out of his experiences with Mieczyslaw Kotlarczk and the Rhapsodic Theatre, a group that performed in secret during the Nazi occupation of Poland as a way of preserving their national literature. The group strived to create a uniquely Polish theatre, a "theatre of imagination, a theatre of the inner self," and those qualities remained at the core of Karol Wojtyla's plays.

The Karol Wojtyla Theatre Festival features two of the pope's plays, The Jeweler's Shop and Our God's Brother.