Neil Armfield
Encyclopedia
Neil Geoffrey Armfield AO
(born 22 April 1955) is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.
Born in Sydney
, Armfield was the youngest 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
. Armfield announced in 2009 that the 2010 season would be his last as Belvoir artistic director, but he has subsequently directed under the new artistic director Ralph Myers
.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(born 22 April 1955) is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.
Born in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Armfield was the youngest 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
Concord, New South Wales
Concord is a suburb in the inner west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 15 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Canada Bay....
adjacent to Exile Bay. He was educated at the (then) selective publicly funded Homebush Boys High School
Homebush Boys High School
Homebush Boys High School, founded in 1936, is a comprehensive public high school for boys. It is located in Homebush, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
and the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
graduating in 1977 and became Co-Artistic Director of the Nimrod Theatre Company
Nimrod Theatre Company
The Nimrod Theatre Company, in Nimrod Street, Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia, was founded by in 1970 by John Bell, Richard Wherrett and Ken Horler, and gained a reputation for producing more "good new Australian drama" from 1970 to 1985 than any other Australian 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
Belvoir St Theatre
Belvoir St Theatre is an Australian theatre venue in Sydney. The venue in Belvoir Street, Surry Hills previously operated as the Nimrod Theatre, and was founded as "Belvoir St" in 1984 by Sue Hill and Chris Westwood...
and the formation of Company B
Company B (theatre)
Belvoir is an Australian theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia. Its Artistic Director is Ralph Myers.Belvoir receives government support for its activities from the federal government through the Major Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts and...
, 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
Australia 2020 Summit
The Australia 2020 Summit was a convention, referred to in Australian media as a summit, which was held on 19-20 April 2008 in Canberra, Australia, aiming to "help shape a long term strategy for the nation's future"...
. Armfield announced in 2009 that the 2010 season would be his last as Belvoir artistic director, but he has subsequently directed under the new artistic director Ralph Myers
Ralph Myers
Ralph Myers is an Australian theatre set-designer and director. In November 2009 was appointed as the new Artistic Director of Sydney's Company B Belvoir. He will replace outgoing Artistic Director Neil Armfield at the beginning 2011...
.
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 TempestThe TempestThe Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
- Ghosts
- Hate
- No Sugar
- HamletHamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
- The Blind Giant is Dancing
- The AlchemistThe Alchemist (play)The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature...
- WASP
- The SeagullThe SeagullThe Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
- The Governor’s Family
- As You Like ItAs You Like ItAs You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
- The Judas KissThe Judas Kiss"The Judas Kiss" is the forty-third single by American heavy metal band Metallica, and the fourth from their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic. On September 8, 2008, it was made available for streaming on the band's official website, as well as a download from the Death Magnetic website Mission:...
- The Small Poppies
- Suddenly Last Summer
- The Marriage of FigaroThe Marriage of FigaroLe nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
- Emma’s Nose
- Aliwa
- My Zinc Bed
- Waiting For GodotWaiting for GodotWaiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
- The UnderpantsThe UnderpantsThe Underpants is the most recent adaptation of the 1910 German farce Die Hose by playwright Carl Sternheim. The adaptation was written by Steve Martin...
- The Lieutenant of Inishmore
- Gulpilil
- The Spook
- The Fever
- CloudstreetCloudstreetCloudstreet is a novel by Australian writer Tim Winton. It chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together at One Cloud Street, in a suburb of Perth, over a period of twenty years, 1943 - 1963...
- Picasso at the Lapin AgilePicasso at the Lapin AgilePicasso at the Lapin Agile is a play written by Steve Martin in 1993. It features the characters of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, who meet at a bar called the Lapin Agile in Montmartre, Paris...
- Dead Heart
- A Cheery Soul
- Night on Bald MountainNight on Bald MountainNight on Bald Mountain is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky that exists in, at least, two versions—a seldom performed 1867 version or a later and very popular "fantasy for orchestra" arranged by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, A Night on the Bare Mountain , based on the vocal score of the "Dream Vision...
- Stuff HappensStuff HappensStuff Happens is a play by David Hare, written in response to the Iraq War. Hare describes it as "a history play" that deals with recent history.The title is inspired by Donald Rumsfeld's response to widespread looting in Baghdad:...
- The Adventures of Snugglepot &
Cuddlepie and Little Ragged Blossom - Keating!Keating!Keating! is a musical theatre production which portrays the political career of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating. Keating was Prime Minister between 1991 to 1996; the musical follows him from his ascendancy to the leadership through to his eventual electoral defeat by John Howard...
- Summer of the Seventeenth DollSummer of the Seventeenth DollSummer of the Seventeenth Doll is a pioneering Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, on 28 November 1955...
Companies worked with
- Nimrod Theatre CompanyNimrod Theatre CompanyThe Nimrod Theatre Company, in Nimrod Street, Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia, was founded by in 1970 by John Bell, Richard Wherrett and Ken Horler, and gained a reputation for producing more "good new Australian drama" from 1970 to 1985 than any other Australian theatre company...
- State Theatre Company of South AustraliaState Theatre Company of South AustraliaThe State Theatre Company of South Australia is South Australia's leading professional theatre company. It is based in the Dunstan Playhouse at the Adelaide Festival Centre. The current artistic director is Adam Cook...
- Queensland Theatre CompanyQueensland Theatre CompanyThe Queensland Theatre Company was established in 1970 as the Royal Queensland Theatre Company. The Company is the state's flagship professional theatre company, headed up by multi-award winning playwright and director Wesley Enoch...
- Sydney Theatre CompanySydney Theatre CompanyThe Sydney Theatre Company is one of Australia's best-known theatre companies operating from The Wharf Theatre near The Rocks area of Sydney, as well as the Sydney Theatre and the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre....
- Seymour Group
- Melbourne Theatre CompanyMelbourne Theatre CompanyThe Melbourne Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Melbourne. Founded in 1953, it is the oldest professional theatre company in Australia, and has its own theatre, The MTC Theatre – which houses the 500-seat Sumner Theatre and the 150-seat Lawler Studio – located in Melbourne's Arts...
- Opera AustraliaOpera AustraliaOpera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre in Melbourne...
- Welsh National OperaWelsh National OperaWelsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...
- Canadian Opera CompanyCanadian Opera CompanyThe Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...
- Zurich OperaZurich OperaOper Zürich is an opera company based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company gives performances in the Opernhaus Zürich which has been the company’s home for fifty years.-History:...
- English National OperaEnglish National OperaEnglish National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
- Royal OperaRoyal Opera, LondonThe Royal Opera is an opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968...
Covent GardenCovent GardenCovent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as... - Lyric Opera of ChicagoLyric Opera of ChicagoLyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
- Houston Grand OperaHouston Grand OperaHouston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
Film
- 1990 The Castanet Club
- 1987 Twelfth Night
- 2006 CandyCandy (2006 film)Candy is a 2006 Australian romantic drama film, adapted from Luke Davies's novel Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction. Candy was directed by debut film-maker Neil Armfield and stars Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish and Geoffrey Rush....
starring Heath LedgerHeath LedgerHeath Andrew Ledger was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career...
, Abbie CornishAbbie CornishAbbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
, Geoffrey RushGeoffrey RushGeoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
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)
- Honorary Doctor of Literature at the University of Sydney (April 2006)
- Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Director and Best Production
- 1989, Major Award for Significant Contribution to Sydney Theatre
- several Green Room AwardsGreen Room AwardsThe Green Room Awards are peer awards which recognise excellence in cabaret, dance, drama, fringe theatre, musical theatre and opera in Melbourne....
- AFI AwardAustralian Film Institute AwardsThe Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award, known as the AACTA Award , is an accolade presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts . The awards recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry and television industry, including directors,...
for Best Director (Mini-series Eden’s Lost) - several Helpmann AwardHelpmann AwardThe Helpmann Awards recognize distinguished artistic achievement and excellence in Australia's live performing arts sectors. The recognized disciplines include musical and physical theatre, contemporary and classical music, opera, and dance, with a comedy category introduced in 2006...
s - Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Performing Arts in Australia
International
- Dublin Festival, Best Production (CloudstreetCloudstreetCloudstreet is a novel by Australian writer Tim Winton. It chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together at One Cloud Street, in a suburb of Perth, over a period of twenty years, 1943 - 1963...
) - Dora Mavor Moore Awards, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Best Director and Best Musical for Billy BuddBilly Budd (opera)Billy Budd is an opera by Benjamin Britten, from a libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, was first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 1 December 1951. It is based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville.... - Barclays Best Opera Production Award (Billy Budd)
- Jesse Kempf
External links
- Talking Heads - Armfield interview by Peter Thompson for ABC1ABC1ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
(July 2010)