Deborah Warner

Deborah Warner CBE
Born	(1959-05-12) 12 May 1959 (age 64) Oxfordshire, England
Alma mater	Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Occupation	Theatre director
Years active	1980–present

Deborah Warner

Warner has since the 1980s worked in close creative partnership with the actor Fiona Shaw, developing a wide range of projects that have been seen throughout Europe and the United States. The Sunday Times' critic John Peter wrote of their vision of Richard II that "Warner and Shaw are not being either fashionable or reactionary ... They are making theatre that is an adventure, a journey of the mind, a discovery of other ages, other countries, other people, other minds."^[4] Warner has also enjoyed long-term collaborations with the designers Jean Kalman [de], Hildegard Bechtler, Chloé Obolensky [de], Tom Pye, the composer Mel Mercier [de] and the choreographer Kim Brandstrup.

Although the majority of her work has focused on major classics of spoken drama and opera, she has also experimented with the performance of poetry (The Waste Land, Readings) and the staging of oratorios (St John Passion, Messiah), as well as installations (The St Pancras and Angel projects, Peace Camp). She has made relatively few excursions into new work (Jeanette Winterson's The Powerbook (2002), Tansy Davies' 2015 opera Between Worlds and The Testament of Mary being exceptions) or comedy (The School for Scandal), and although she has made much creative use of video on stage, she has directed little for film and television.

Her first creations for Kick, a company that she started and managed, were deeply influenced by the example of Peter Brook and his belief that the performer must always be at the centre of the event. "I'm not sure I would have been in any way conscious of the potency of theatre if I hadn't seen his work", she said in an interview with Vogue in July 1994. Other figures important in her formative years include Peter Stein, who commissioned her production of Coriolanus at the Salzburg Festival, and Nicholas Payne and Anthony Whitworth-Jones who commissioned her first essays in opera, at Opera North and Glyndebourne respectively.

Although she has refused to subscribe to a programmatic

Warner has also worked extensively in field of opera and classical music, including a production of The Diary of One Who Disappeared by Janáček starring Ian Bostridge; a staging of the St John Passion at English National Opera; a controversial staging of Mozart's Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne;^[2][5] Wozzeck for Opera North; Death in Venice and Tansy Davies' Between Worlds at English National Opera; and Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Les Arts Florissants in Vienna, Paris and Amsterdam. Other notable productions include opening the 2015/15 season at La Scala, Milan, with Fidelio conducted by Daniel Barenboim and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the 2013/2014 season.

She frequently collaborates with Canadian set designer Michael Levine.^[6]

Film

Warner directed the 1999 film The Last September, starring Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith.

Awards and nominations

Awards

• 1988 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director – Titus Andronicus
• 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director of a Play – Hedda Gabler
• 1992 Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
• 2006 Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), "for services to drama".^[7]

Nominations

• 1997 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play – The Waste Land
• 2003 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play – Medea
• 2003 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play – Medea
• 2008 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play – Happy Days

Chronology

References

External links

• Deborah Warner at the Internet Broadway Database
• Deborah Warner at
  IMDb