Professor Rudakoff is a dramaturg, author, critic and playwright who has worked across Canada and internationally for more than 20  years. A former literary manager and resident dramaturg for Toronto Free Theatre, the Canadian Stage Company and Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, she has worked with professional theatre companies from Whitehorse, Yukon to Charlottetown, P.E.I. and points between.

Dr. Rudakoff's research and publications are primarily in the field of developmental dramaturgy, contemporary Canadian theatre and dance, and performance in Cuba and South Africa. Her publications include the books Fair Play: Conversations With Canadian Woman Playwrights (Simon & Pierre, 1989) and Dangerous Traditions: A Passe Muraille Anthology (Blizzard, 1992) as well as many articles in theatre magazines and academic journals. She is editor of the chapbook series Questionable Activities: Canadian Theatre Artists Interviewed by Canadian Theatre Students, and the ensuing trade paperback Questionable Activities: The Best  published by Playwrights Union of Canada (2000).  Her latest book, Between the Lines: The Process of Dramaturgy, co-authored with American dramaturg Lynn M. Thomson, was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2002. 

As one of two primary collaborators on Joyous City/Secret City, a joint project with colleagues at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England, Dr. Rudakoff conceived and later evolved an innovative creative methodology for devising and dramaturging Image Theatre. As a result of this work, her process of applying the four elements to creative practice, and her use of lomograms (image cards which are drawn from her own photographs taken with the Russian lomo camera), she has been invited to give workshops in creative practice internationally for theatre, dance and visual artists. One of these workshops has led to ongoing involvement in a theatre outreach program in South Africa's Langa Township outside of Cape Town. She has also given drama workshops in Gugulethu and Nyanga Townships, South Africa. 

Judith Rudakoff's play Not Having was produced at Playwright's Workshop, Montreal and the Women in View Festival, Vancouver, and showcased at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. It was presented in Spanish translation as Sin Tener by Cuba's Teatro Escambray, the first Canadian play to be produced in Cuba. Her play Rum and Cola, a Cuban cocktail with a twist, received honourable mention in the Herman Voaden National Playwriting Competition. She is currently working on The Grove, an adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard set in an isolated theatre artists' colony in rural Cuba, and a novel titled All Inclusive.

Professor Rudakoff is a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada and Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), for whom she has served as vice-president. She completed three terms on the Chalmers Canadian Play Jury. In 2001, she received LMDA's internationally adjudicated Elliott Hayes Prize for Dramaturgy in recognition of her work as playwright and dramaturg of Revealed by Fire, a multi-disciplinary production created in collaboration with choreographer/dancer Lata Pada which has toured Canada, the USA and India.

A member of the faculty of York University's Theatre Department since 1989, Professor Rudakoff teaches playwriting, developmental dramaturgy and contemporary Canadian theatre, and coordinates the MFA program in playwriting. She has been honoured twice by York University for excellence in teaching: as the recipient of the first Faculty of Fine Arts Dean's Teaching Award in 1998 and a University-wide Teaching Award the following year. She also holds the distinction of being voted Best University Professor in the annual Readers’ Poll of Toronto's NOW magazine for three consecutive years, 1999 to 2001.