Suzanne Andrade is an English poet, performer and theatre director.
Life and career
editSuzanne Andrade studied at Bretton Hall College of Education. There she attained a first class degree in theater performance. Thereafter she gained a M.A. degree with distinctions in French theater from Manchester Metropolitan University. After graduating, she was commissioned by BBC to write a full length play for the West Yorkshire Playhouse. While still living and working in the North, she won a series of small-scale standup comedy competitions.
After moving to London, Andrade established herself as a sought-after performance poet on the circuit, appearing also on Radio 3 (Mixing It, The Verb). She started to work with Paul Barritt and developed several small-scale shows combining her poetry and his projections. Eventually she performed as part of a literary cabaret in the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe, teaming up with two other spoken word artists, Rhian Edwards and Nathan Penlington, to produce a show called Invisible Ink which fused magic, music, poetry and animation to critical acclaim. It included excerpts from the soundtrack Pandora's Box by the band Subterraneans.
She also published her writing as a part of the Comic Book Project in conjunction with the Collective Gallery in Edinburgh.
1927
editIn 2005, Andrade and animator/illustrator Paul Barritt founded the group 1927, based in London and specialised in combining performance and live music with animation and film ″to create magical filmic theatre″. In 2006, performer and costume designer Esme Appleton and performer, composer and musician Lillian Henley joined the group. In 2007, producer Jo Crowley started to collaborate with the company. The creative members of 1927 came from different artistic fields and backgrounds, and it is the goal of the group to establish collaboration between different art forms and to integrate artistic disciplines. The result is a highly original style, easily recognizable and recognized as unique and innovative by public and press.
At the heart of1927’s practice is the desire to explore the relationship between live actor and animation to create dynamic and innovative live theatre. 1927 fuse, merge and mix creative mediums to create a unique performance style. The company has developed an approach to combining the mediums of film, performance and music to great effect, both technically and conceptually; pushing the forms the company works in to new andexciting places.
1927 has mastered a delicate marriage of live music,animation, film, performance and song – taking disparate elements and making them work in harmony to create unique theatrical experiences.
- The Animals and Children Took to the Streets
This play is situated in the Bayou, a place on the wrong side of town, where “every morning is like waking in someone else’s bad dream”. Here the animals have better table manners than some of the human inhabitants and a middle class woman called Agnes Eaves aims to save the local children through the all-healing power of art. When a popular uprising starts, this seems like the most tremendous fun but it is impossible to escape the feeling that everything is going to end badly.[1]
Mitchell staged a new production of Luigi Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore for the Salzburg Festival in 2009,[2] and a new production of Parthenogenesis at the Royal Opera House in June 2009.[3]
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'.[4] 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.[5]
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.[6]
Reputation
editThe Scotsman wrote about their work:
1927's trademark is the technically brilliant use of live action and music combined with superbly drawn and animated film to create shows that combine vintage cultural nostalgia with a sharp, beady-eyed sense of postmodern alienation.
In January 2011 she was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.[7]
Selected directing credits
edit- 2006: Invisible Ink — Edinburgh Festival
With 1927
edit- 2008: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea — Edinburgh Festival Fringe, then UK tour and international tour
- 2010: The Animals and Children Took to the Streets — Sydney Opera House, National Theatre in London, Melbourne, University of Chichester and Salzburg Festival
- 2012: The Magic Flute — Komische Oper Berlin, thereafter at the LA Opera, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Minnesota Opera and at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten, also at the Teatro Real in Madrid, at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelone and – in November 2017 – at the Opéra-Comique in Paris
- 2014: Golem — Salzburg Festival, thereafter at the Stratford Circus in London, in Brighton, at the Young Vic, in Taipei and Paris
- 2014: The Crazy Kat Project— Festival Tonlagen (Dresden), Essen and Cologne
- 2017: Petrushka/L'enfant et les sortilèges — Komische Oper Berlin, thereafter at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
Accolades
editHerald Angel, Fringe First, Carol Tambor, Arches Brick, Total Theatre, Off West End, Critics Circle and the Peter Brook Empty Space Ensemble Award.
In 2015, Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt were listed on „Progress 1000“ (most influential people in London, category theatre) as well as on „The Stage 100 List“ (most influential artists in British theater).[8]
Notes
edit- ^ Salzburg Festival: Montblanc & Salzburg Festival YDP I • 1927 • The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, retrieved an January 26, 2017
- ^ http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/oper/detail/pid/4229/sid/84/
- ^ http://www.roh.org.uk/parthenogensis
- ^ http://59productions.co.uk/project/va_five_stages_of_truth
- ^ http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/f/five-truths
- ^ "August 2012". This Month at the Met. 6 August 2012. Sirius XM. Metropolitan Opera Radio.
- ^ BBC Radio 3
- ^ Evening Standard (London): The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2015 - Theatre, 16. September 2015
External links
edit- 1927, official website
- Suzanne Andrade at IMDb
- Suzanne Andrade search results at Les Archives du Spectacle
- Suzanne Andrade search results at the Operabase
- Suzanne Andrade search results at the LA Opera
- "Dans The Forbidden Zone Katie Mitchell conjugue brillamment théâtre et cinéma" by Jean-Luc Lebreton, unidivers.fr (in French)
Category:1964 births
Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
Category:English theatre directors
Category:English television directors
Category:Living people
Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Category:People educated at Oakham School
Category:British opera directors
Category:Women theatre directors