Katie Mitchell

In 1989, she was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship to study director’s training in Russian, Georgia, Lithuania and Poland and the work she saw there, including productions by Lev Dodin, Eimuntas Nekrosius and Anatoly Vasiliev, influenced her own practice for the next twenty years.

[4] She has directed thirteen productions for the Royal Court, including Ten Billion (2012) and 2071(2014) about the climate emergency, an issue she is passionate about.

[6] Taking as its inspiration 5 of the most influential European theatre directors of the last century, the project examines how each of the practitioners would direct the actress playing Ophelia in the 'mad' scenes in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

This multiscreen video installation, launched at the Chantiers Europe festival at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris on 4 June, and opened at the V&A on 12 July 2011.

[8] In 2007, the artistic director of the NT accused the British press of affording Mitchell's productions "misogynistic reviews, where everything they say is predicated on her sex".

[2] In 2016 Mitchell was described as ‘British theatre’s Queen in exile’ and a director who ‘provokes strong reactions.’ Some see her ‘as a vandal, ripping apart classic texts and distorting them to her own dubious purpose’ and others ‘consider her to be the most important British director of theatre and opera at work today – indeed, among the greatest in the world.’ (The Guardian, 14 January 2016) She has a daughter Edie, born 2005.

[14] Mitchell was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to drama.

[16][17] In September 2017, she was awarded the President's Medal of the British Academy "for her work to enhance the presentation of classic and contemporary theatre and opera through innovative new production".