Neil Armfield

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Neil Geoffrey Armfield AO (born in 1955 or 1956)[1][2] is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.

Born in Sydney, Armfield was the second of three boys. The son of a factory worker at the nearby Arnott's biscuit factory he was brought up in the suburb of Concord adjacent to Exile Bay. He was educated at the (then) selective publicly funded Homebush Boys High School and the University of Sydney graduating in 1977 and became Co-Artistic Director of the Nimrod Theatre Company in 1979. He joined South Australia’s Lighthouse Theatre before returning to Sydney in 1985, where he was involved in the purchase of Belvoir St Theatre and the formation of Company B, becoming its first Artistic Director in 1994.

In April 2008 he was selected as a participant in the Towards a creative Australia strand of the Australia 2020 Summit.

Contents

[edit] Company B Work

For Company B, he has directed

  • Signal Driver
  • State of Shock
  • Aftershocks
  • Master Builder
  • The Diary of a Madman
  • Diving for Pearls
  • The Tempest
  • Ghosts
  • Hate
  • No Sugar
  • Hamlet
  • The Blind Giant is Dancing

[edit] Companies worked with

[edit] Film

[edit] Awards and Honours

[edit] Australian

  • Officer of the Order of Australia for ...service to the arts, nationally and internationally, as a director of theatre, opera and film, and as a promoter of innovative Australian productions including Australian Indigenous drama. (January 2007) [3]
  • Honorary Doctor of Literature at the University of Sydney (April 2006)[4]
  • Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Director and Best Production
  • 1989, Major Award for Significant Contribution to Sydney Theatre
  • several Green Room Awards
  • AFI Award for Best Director (Mini-series Eden’s Lost)
  • several Helpmann Awards
  • Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Performing Arts in Australia

[edit] International

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mitter, Shomit; Maria Shevtsova (2005). Fifty Key Theatre Directors. Routledge, p. 236. ISBN 0415187311. 
  2. ^ Atkinson, Ann; Linsay Knight (1996). The dictionary of performing arts in Australia, Margaret McPhee, Allen & Unwin, p. 11. ISBN 1863738983. 
  3. ^ It's an Honour website
  4. ^ Neil Armfield awarded Honorary doctorate