about me
I started directing when I was eight, almost by accident:
I hated sports class in primary school. They always made me run and I was bad at it. My mind was fast, my legs were slow. So I came up with a plan and convinced my school to let me start a theatre club and argued that the only time we could do it was during sports class. Of course. Shockingly, they went for it.
I was very happy to get out of running – but then I realised I wasn’t alone. My imaginary club actually had members. Turns out there were a lot of kids who also wanted to get out of sports class. So I found myself in charge of a lot of people – and the school was very excited to schedule a show at the end of term – so I needed to come up with something. Fast.
And that thing – having to come up with something – that did it for me. I was well and truly hooked.
I chose a short story to adapt and decided to involve the whole class. I loved the million decisions, having to quick-fire solutions, seeing the ideas gradually take shape, feeling my classmates starting to get it, seeing them become excited and get involved.
Mostly I’m still that eight-year-old giddy with possibility, figuring out that you can take your imagination and put it in front of audiences, and the people making the thing and the people watching the thing can see themselves in it and make it live.
My work is visceral and visual, exhilarating and explosive, and always trying to make you feel ALIVE – puncture pretension through laughter, scream your heart out, dance and abandon yourself, hold your breath, edge of your seat, can’t sit still, get up and move!
SELECTED CREDITS
DEGREES
– MFA in Theatre Directing from Birkbeck, University of London
– BA with double concentration in English and Theatre from Harvard University
DIRECTING
– I, Joan, by Charlie Josephine, at the Globe Theatre, London
– Richard III, by William Shakespeare, at the Globe Theatre, London (co-directed with Sean Holmes)
– Henry VI, by William Shakespeare, at the Globe Theatre, London (co-directed with Sean Holmes)
– Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe, at the American Repertory Theater, Boston
– The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh, at the American Repertory Theater, Boston
ASSISTING
– Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, dir. Robert Icke, at Park Ave Armory, New York
– Oresteia, adapted from Aeschylus, dir. Robert Icke, at Park Ave Armory, New York
– The Night of the Iguana, by Tennessee Williams, dir. James Macdonald, at Noël Coward Theatre, London
– Summer and Smoke, by Tennessee Williams, dir. Rebecca Frecknall, at Duke of York's Theatre, London
– Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, dir. Robert Icke, at Almeida Theatre and Harold Pinter Theatre, London
– Mary Stuart, adapted from Friedrich Schiller, dir. Robert Icke, at Almeida Theatre and Duke of York's Theatre, London
– A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts, devised by the company, dir. Sean Holmes, at Lyric Hammersmith, London
– Glitterland, by Hayley Squires, dir. Ellen McDougall, at Lyric Hammersmith, London
– Chamber Piece, by Caroline Bird, dir. Sean Holmes, at Lyric Hammersmith, London
– A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, dir. Sean Holmes, at Lyric Hammersmith, London
– Woyzeck, by Georg Büchner, dir. Sean Holmes, at Lyric Hammersmith, London