Michael Grandage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Grandage is a British theatre director who is currently Artistic Director at the Donmar Warehouse in London, England.
He trained as an actor at Central School of Speech and Drama from 1981 - 1984 and worked as an actor for 12 years before turning to directing full-time in 1996.
From 2000 – 2005 he served as Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres where his high profile productions included Edward II with Joseph Fiennes, Richard III with Kenneth Branagh and A Midsummer Nights Dream with Derek Jacobi.
In 2002 he was announced as the high-profile successor to Sam Mendes at the Donmar. His productions there have been as diverse as Schiller’s Mary Stuart, the musical Grand Hotel and include among many others Pirandello Henry IV, Ibsen’s The Wild Duck and the premiere of Mark Ravenhill’s The Cut.
He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2001 for Best Director for Peter Nicholl’s Passion Play at the Donmar Warehouse before winning in 2004 for Albert Camus’ Caligula, also at the Donmar.
In July 2006 it was announced that Donmar general manager Tobias Round and executive producer Nick Frankfort are to leave to establish a new company, Creative Management and Productions Limited, to develop further West End projects with Grandage to run alongside his projects at the subsidised venue. As of August 2006, two Grandage musical revivals are playing side-by-side in the West End; Guys and Dolls (Piccadilly Theatre) and Evita (Adelphi Theatre).
The Independent on Sunday 2006 Pink List ranked Grandage as the 21st most powerful gay man in the country in a list that featured other British theatre directors Gregory Doran and Nicholas Hytner.
