Irina Brook
Encyclopedia
Irina Brook is a British stage actress, director and producer. The daughter of film and theatre director Peter Brook
and actress Natasha Parry, she was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2002 by the French Ministry of Culture. Born in Paris, Brook grew up between England and France.
to study drama with Stella Adler
, and played in several off-Broadway
shows, including the lead in Irish Coffee. A couple of years later, she returned to Paris to act in her father's production of The Cherry Orchard
followed by Molière
's Dom Juan
at the Bouffes du Nord
. She then moved to London, where she appeared in films, TV and numerous theatre productions. Her film roles include the title roles in The Girl in the Picture, Heroine, and Meshenka.
, London. She also directed Madame Klein by Nicholas Wright (Watford) and Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well
(Oxford). In 1998, she directed the French version of Beast on the Moon at the Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne and Bobigny, Paris. After several national and international tours, the show returned for a six month sell-out at the Theâtre de l'Oeuvre, Paris, where it won five Molière theatre awards
, including best director and best show. Brook also directed a television version of the play, for which she was awarded the prix Mitrani at the International Festival of Audiovisual Programs (FIPA), a film festival in Biarritz
.
She was invited by Ariane Mnouchkine
to direct her Théâtre du Soleil
company, with whom she put on a French version of All's Well that Ends Well for the Avignon Theatre Festival
. Meanwhile she premiered a new American play, Resonance (Morphic Resonance), by Katherine Burger, at the Theâtre de l'Atelier, for which she also received a Molière award and the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques award for new talent. She created a version of Homer
's Odyssey
for young audiences at the Sartrouville Theater Festival, followed by Romeo and Juliet
(retitled Juliette et Romeo) for Lausanne and the Théâtre national de Chaillot
, Paris. For the same co-producers, she directed Dancing at Lughnasa
, by Brian Friel
, which was then invited to perform in Tokyo.
She returned to the Atelier Theatre with Tennessee Williams
' The Glass Menagerie
, which was invited to play in Moscow. She has also directed Bertolt Brecht
's The Good Person of Szechwan
, Marivaux's L'ile des esclaves, and adapted Thornton Wilder
's novella
, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
, for Vidy-Lausanne and the Theâtre de Sceaux, Paris.
In February 2006, she was invited to recreate her production of The Glass Menagerie with Japanese actors at the New National Theatre Tokyo.
Brook produced a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream
for six men, which was first produced by the Festival Dedans-Dehors, Bretigny
, and performed outdoors in France and Switzerland. She then redirected it to play indoors, in theatres, and after a sold out month at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris, the show was so successful that it has continued touring since then throughout France and in festivals around Europe, and has been invited to the Rideau du Spectacle in Quebec city and will tour Canada for a month in 2010.
This production led to the formation of Compagnie Irina Brook, whose premier production was new version of Don Quixote, Somewhere…la Mancha, a contemporary take on the adventures of the famous couple as they travel across the USA to a soundtrack of traditional bluegrass gospel. Somewhere… premiered in July 2008 at the Avignon festival and will have its Paris premiere this April.
She is now Director-in-Residence at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts and currently working on a new production of the British classic Toad of Toad Hall.
, starting with The Magic Flute
for the Dutch Reisopera, co-directed by her partner Dan Jemmet. She was then invited to direct Eugene Onegin
, for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. This was followed by Cenerentola, for the Theatre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, and the Teatro Communale, Bologna
. She has also directed La traviata
, in Bologna, which was co-produced by the Opéra de Lille, Last and Handel
's Giulio Cesare
at the Theatre des Champs-Élysées.
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
and actress Natasha Parry, she was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2002 by the French Ministry of Culture. Born in Paris, Brook grew up between England and France.
Acting
At eighteen, Brook went to New YorkNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to study drama with Stella Adler
Stella Adler
Stella Adler was an American actress and an acclaimed acting teacher, who founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and the The Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles with long-time protege Joanne Linville, who continues to teach and furthers Adler's legacy...
, and played in several off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
shows, including the lead in Irish Coffee. A couple of years later, she returned to Paris to act in her father's production of The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
followed by Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's Dom Juan
Dom Juan
Dom Juan or The Feast with the Statue is a French play by Molière, based on the legend of Don Juan. Molière's characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterparts to the Spanish Don Juan and Catalinón, characters who would later become familiar to opera goers as Don Giovanni and Leporello...
at the Bouffes du Nord
Bouffes du Nord
The Bouffes du Nord is a theater at 37 bis, boulevard de la Chapelle in the 10th arrondissement of Paris located near the Gare du Nord. It is registered as a historic monument.-History:...
. She then moved to London, where she appeared in films, TV and numerous theatre productions. Her film roles include the title roles in The Girl in the Picture, Heroine, and Meshenka.
Director producer
In the mid 1990s, Brook directed and produced her first show, Beast on the Moon by Richard Kalinoski, at the Battersea Arts CentreBattersea Arts Centre
The Battersea Arts Centre is a performance space near Clapham Junction in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth that specialises in music and theatre productions.-History:...
, London. She also directed Madame Klein by Nicholas Wright (Watford) and Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well
All's Well That Ends Well
All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1604 and 1605, and was originally published in the First Folio in 1623....
(Oxford). In 1998, she directed the French version of Beast on the Moon at the Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne and Bobigny, Paris. After several national and international tours, the show returned for a six month sell-out at the Theâtre de l'Oeuvre, Paris, where it won five Molière theatre awards
Molière Award
The Molière Award is the national theatre award of France decided by the Association professionnelle et artistique du théâtre and given out every April or May since 1987, during a ceremony called La Nuit des Molières . The award was created by Georges Cravenne, who was also the creator of the...
, including best director and best show. Brook also directed a television version of the play, for which she was awarded the prix Mitrani at the International Festival of Audiovisual Programs (FIPA), a film festival in Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
.
She was invited by Ariane Mnouchkine
Ariane Mnouchkine
Ariane Mnouchkine is a world-renowned French stage director. She founded the Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble Théâtre du Soleil in 1964. She has written and directed 1789 and Molière , and in 1989, she directed La Nuit Miraculeuse...
to direct her Théâtre du Soleil
Théâtre du Soleil
Le Théâtre du Soleil is a Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble founded by Ariane Mnouchkine, Philippe Léotard and fellow students of the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in 1964 as a collective of theatre artists. Le Théâtre du Soleil is located at La Cartoucherie, a former munitions...
company, with whom she put on a French version of All's Well that Ends Well for the Avignon Theatre Festival
Festival d'Avignon
The Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest...
. Meanwhile she premiered a new American play, Resonance (Morphic Resonance), by Katherine Burger, at the Theâtre de l'Atelier, for which she also received a Molière award and the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques award for new talent. She created a version of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
's Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
for young audiences at the Sartrouville Theater Festival, followed by Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
(retitled Juliette et Romeo) for Lausanne and the Théâtre national de Chaillot
Théâtre national de Chaillot
The Théâtre national de Chaillot is a theatre located in the Palais de Chaillot at 1, place du Trocadero, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Close by the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro Gardens—the Théâtre de Chaillot is among the largest concert halls in Paris. It has long been synonymous with...
, Paris. For the same co-producers, she directed Dancing at Lughnasa
Dancing at Lughnasa
Dancing at Lughnasa is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in Ireland's County Donegal in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator...
, by Brian Friel
Brian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
, which was then invited to perform in Tokyo.
She returned to the Atelier Theatre with Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
, which was invited to play in Moscow. She has also directed Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
's The Good Person of Szechwan
The Good Person of Szechwan
The Good Person of Szechwan is a play written by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau. The play was begun in 1938 but not completed until 1943, while the author was in exile in the United States...
, Marivaux's L'ile des esclaves, and adapted Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
's novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the...
, for Vidy-Lausanne and the Theâtre de Sceaux, Paris.
In February 2006, she was invited to recreate her production of The Glass Menagerie with Japanese actors at the New National Theatre Tokyo.
Brook produced a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
for six men, which was first produced by the Festival Dedans-Dehors, Bretigny
Brétigny
Brétigny or Bretigny may refer to the following places:*in France:**Bretigny, Côte-d'Or, in the Côte-d'Or département**Brétigny, Eure, in the Eure département**Brétigny, Oise, in the Oise département...
, and performed outdoors in France and Switzerland. She then redirected it to play indoors, in theatres, and after a sold out month at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris, the show was so successful that it has continued touring since then throughout France and in festivals around Europe, and has been invited to the Rideau du Spectacle in Quebec city and will tour Canada for a month in 2010.
This production led to the formation of Compagnie Irina Brook, whose premier production was new version of Don Quixote, Somewhere…la Mancha, a contemporary take on the adventures of the famous couple as they travel across the USA to a soundtrack of traditional bluegrass gospel. Somewhere… premiered in July 2008 at the Avignon festival and will have its Paris premiere this April.
She is now Director-in-Residence at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts and currently working on a new production of the British classic Toad of Toad Hall.
Opera
Brook has also ventured into the world of operaOpera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, starting with The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
for the Dutch Reisopera, co-directed by her partner Dan Jemmet. She was then invited to direct Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
, for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. This was followed by Cenerentola, for the Theatre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, and the Teatro Communale, Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
. She has also directed La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, in Bologna, which was co-produced by the Opéra de Lille, Last and Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
's Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare in Egitto , commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724...
at the Theatre des Champs-Élysées.