Katie Mitchell

Life and career

Mitchell was raised in Hermitage, Berkshire, and educated at Oakham School. Upon leaving Oakham she went up to Magdalen College, Oxford, to read English. She is particularly inspired by Eastern European theatre and by choreographers such as Pina Bausch and Siobhan Davies.

She began her career behind the scenes at the King's Head Theatre in London before taking on work as an assistant director at theatre companies including Paines Plough and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Early in her career she directed a number of early productions under the umbrella of her company Classics On A Shoestring.

In 1997 Mitchell became responsible for programming at the Other Place – the RSC's now defunct black box space. While at the RSC her productions included The Phoenician Women which won her the Evening Standard Award for Best Director in 1996.

In 2004 she was an Associate of the Royal National Theatre.

Her frequent collaborators include writer Martin Crimp and designer Vicki Mortimer.

Mitchell staged a new production of Luigi Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore for the Salzburg Festival in 2009, and a new production of Parthenogenesis at the Royal Opera House in June 2009.

The Department of Theatre and Performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum invited Mitchell and Leo Warner of 59 Productions to conceive and produce a video installation exploring the nature of 'truth in performance'. 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 famous 'mad' scenes in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This multiscreen video installation, launched at the Chantiers Europe festival at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris on 4 June, and opened at the V&A on 12 July 2011.

According to general manager Peter Gelb, Mitchell was scheduled to direct a future production of Mozart's opera Così fan tutte at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Reputation

Mitchell has been described as "a director who polarises audiences like no other" and "the closest thing the British theatre has to an auteur". 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".

Her productions have been described as "distinguished by the intensity of the emotions, the realism of the acting, and the creation of a very distinctive world" and accused of "a willful disregard for classic texts", but Mitchell suggests that "there's a signature in every director's work" and that it is not her intent to work to a "strong personal signature".

Mitchell's process involves long and intensive rehearsal periods and use of the Stanislavski 'system'. She regularly involves psychiatry in looking at characters, and in 2004 directed a series of workshops on Stanislavski and neuroscience at the NT studio. Since her 2006 play Waves, she has also experimented with video projections in a number of productions.

A former associate director at the Royal Court Theatre, Mitchell was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. She has a daughter Edie, born c. 2006.

In January 2011 she was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.

Selected directing credits

1994: Rutherford and Son by Githa Sowerby

1995: The Machine Wreckers (Die Maschinenstürmer) by Ernst Toller

1996: The Phoenician Women by Euripides

1996: Don Giovanni, an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

1998: Jenůfa, an opera by Leoš Janáček

2000: The Oresteia, a version by Ted Hughes from Aeschylus

2000: The Country, by Martin Crimp

2001: Káťa Kabanová, an opera by Leoš Janáček

2002: Ivanov by Anton Chekhov

2003: Jephtha, an oratorio by George Frideric Handel

2003: Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov

2004: The Turn of the Screw (film), opera by Benjamin Britten

2004: Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides

2005: A Dream Play by August Strindberg

2006: The Seagull, a version by Martin Crimp of Anton Chekhov's play

2007: Waves, based on Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves

2007: Attempts on Her Life by Martin Crimp

2007: Women of Troy by Euripides

2008: The City by Martin Crimp

2008: ...Some Trace of Her inspired / based on The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

2008: The Maids by Jean Genet, Sweden

2009: Wunschkonzert by Franz Xaver Kroetz, Schauspiel Köln, Cologne, Germany

2009: After Dido based on Dido and Aeneas by Purcell (for English National Opera at the Young Vic)

2009: Pains of Youth, a version by Martin Crimp of Ferdinand Bruckner's play Krankheit der Jugend at the National Theatre

2009: Parthenogenesis an opera by James MacMillan and Michael Symmons Roberts at the Royal Opera House

2009: The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss at the National Theatre and at the Young Vic

2010: Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at English National Opera

2010: Fräulein Julie after August Strindberg at the Schaubühne, Berlin

2010: Beauty And The Beast by Lucy Kirkwood at the National Theatre

2011: Clemency, an opera by James MacMillan and Michael Symmons Roberts at the Royal Opera House

2011: Die Wellen based on Virginia Woolf's The Waves at Schauspiel Köln, Cologne, Germany

2011: Wastwater by Simon Stephens at the Royal Court Theatre, London

2011: A Woman Killed With Kindness by Thomas Heywood at the National Theatre, London

2012: The Trial of Ubu Roi by Simon Stephens at the Hampstead Theatre, London

2012: Written on Skin, an opera by George Benjamin, libretto by Martin Crimp at the Grand Théâtre de Provence during Aix-en-Provence Festival

2012: Die Ringe des Saturn by W. G. Sebald at Avignon Festival

2012: Ten Billion by Katie Mitchell and Stephen Emmott at Avignon Festival

2012: Reise Durch Die Nacht by Friederike Mayröcker at Schauspiel Köln, Cologne, Germany

2013: Le vin herbé by Frank Martin at Berlin State Opera, Berlin

2013: The House Taken Over by Vasco Mendonça at the Aix-en-Provence Festival

2013: Alles Weitere Kennen Sie aus dem Kino a version by Martin Crimp of Euripides' The Phoenician Women at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg

2013: Die gelbe Tapete by Charlotte Perkins Gilman at Schaubühne, Berlin, Germany

2013: Atmen by Duncan Macmillan at Schaubühne, Berlin, Germany

2014: Wunschloses Unglück by Peter Handke at Burgtheater, Vienna, Austria

2014: The Forbidden Zone von Duncan Macmillan, Salzburger Festspiele, Austria

2015: Glückliche Tage by Samuel Beckett at Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg, Germany

2015: Alcina by Handel at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence (Streaming-Live, Blu-ral/DVD released in 2016)

2015: Reisende auf einem Bein by Herta Müller at Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg, Germany

2016: Cleansed by Sarah Kane at the National Theatre, London

2016: Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti at Royal Opera House

2016: Neither by Morton Feldman at Berlin State Opera

2016: Schatten (Eurydice sagt) by Elfriede Jelinek at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz

2016: Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy at Festival d'Aix-en-Provence (Streaming-Live)

2017: Anatomy of a Suicide by Alice Birch at Royal Court Theatre