Katie Mitchell OBE

Katie Mitchell has directed over 100 productions in a career spanning 30 years. She directs text-based theatre, opera, and live cinema productions (a unique combination of video and theatre techniques). In the UK she has directed 9 productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, 19 for the National Theatre and 12 for The Royal Court – and she has been an Associate Director at all three organisations. In opera she has directed for English National Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Welsh National Opera, and the Royal Opera House.

Recent opera productions include New Dark Age (ROH), Blaubart (Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich), Zauberland (Bouffe du Nord, Paris) Ariadne auf Naxos, Pelléas et Mélisande, Alcina, Trauernacht and The House Taken Over (Aix-en-Provence Festival), Written on Skin (Royal Opera, Aix-en-Provence), Lessons in Love and Violence and Lucia di Lammermoor (Royal Opera), Jenůfa (Dutch National Opera), Miranda (Opera Comique, Paris), Martin’s Le Vin herbé and Feldman’s Neither (Berlin State Opera) and Nono’s Al gran sole carico d’amore (Salzburg Festival, Berlin State Opera).

Her theatre work includes Orlando, Shadows (Eurydice Speaks), Ophelia’s Zimmer, Lungs, The Yellow Wallpaper and Fräulein Julie (Schaubühne, Berlin), Norma Jean Baker of Troy (The Shed, New York), Bluets, Sleeping Men, 4.48 Psychosis, Reisende auf einem Bein, Happy Days, and The Rest Will Be Familiar to you from Cinema (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg), La Maladie de La Mort (Bouffe du Nord, Paris), Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court), The Maids (Toneel, Amsterdam) Forbidden Zone (Salzburg Festival), Reise durch die Nacht, Rings of Saturn and Wunchkonzert (Schauspielhaus, Cologne) and When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, Cleansed, Waves, Women of Troy, Iphigenia at Aulis (National Theatre).

Since 2008 she has split her time between working in the UK and in Europe in countries including Germany, France, Holland, and Scandinavia. She is currently a resident director at the Schaubuhne (Berlin), the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (Hamburg) and she has just finished a seven-year residency at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (France).

Her many awards in the UK include 2 Time Out Awards (1990 & 1991), The Evening Standard Best Director Award (1996) and a Tonic Award for her representations of women (2018). Her awards in Europe and beyond include 3 Theatertreffen prizes (Germany) in 2008 & 2009, an Obie Award (US) in 2009, 2 Golden Mask Awards (Russia) in 2011 & 2019, the Stanislavsky International Prize (Russia) in 2014, Best Director for 2019 at the International Opera Awards. She was presented with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) 2009.