Deborah Warner CBE
Born	(1959-05-12)12 May 1959 (age 66) Oxfordshire, England
Alma mater	Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Occupation	Theatre director
Years active	1980–present

Deborah WarnerCBE (born 12 May 1959) is a Britishdirector of theatre andopera, known for her interpretations of theworks of Shakespeare,Bertolt Brecht,Benjamin Britten, andHenrik Ibsen, and for her collaborations with Irish actressFiona Shaw.

Warner was born on 12 May 1959 inOxford, England, toantiquariansRoger Harold Metford Warner and Ruth Ernestine Hurcombe.^[1][2]

After attendingSidcot School andSt Clare's, Oxford, she studied Stage Management atCentral School of Speech and Drama.^[3][2]

In 1980 she founded the KICK theatre company when she was 21.^[4]

Warner has since the 1980s worked in close creative partnership with the actorFiona Shaw, developing a wide range of projects that have been seen throughout Europe and the United States.The Sunday Times' critic John Peter wrote of their vision ofRichard II that "Warner and Shaw are not being either fashionable or reactionary ... They are making theatre that is an adventure, a journey of the mind, a discovery of other ages, other countries, other people, other minds."^[5] Warner has also enjoyed long-term collaborations with the designersJean Kalman [de],Hildegard Bechtler,Chloé Obolensky [de], Tom Pye, the composerMel Mercier [de] and thechoreographerKim Brandstrup.

Although the majority of her work has focused on major classics of spokendrama andopera, she has also experimented with the performance ofpoetry (The Waste Land,Readings) and the staging oforatorios (St John Passion,Messiah), as well asinstallations (The St Pancras and Angel projects, Peace Camp). She has made relatively few excursions into new work (Jeanette Winterson'sThe Powerbook (2002),Tansy Davies' 2015 operaBetween Worlds andThe Testament of Mary being exceptions) orcomedy (The School for Scandal), and although she has made much creative use of video on stage, she has directed little for film and television.

Her first creations for Kick, a company that she started and managed, were deeply influenced by the example ofPeter Brook and his belief that the performer must always be at the centre of the event. "I'm not sure I would have been in any way conscious of the potency of theatre if I hadn't seen his work", she said in an interview withVogue in July 1994. Other figures important in her formative years includePeter Stein, who commissioned her production ofCoriolanus at theSalzburg Festival, and Nicholas Payne and Anthony Whitworth-Jones who commissioned her first essays inopera, atOpera North andGlyndebourne respectively.

Although she has refused to subscribe to a programmaticfeminism or apolitical ideology, her work has often explored issues of gender, notably in her ground-breaking casting ofFiona Shaw as Shakespeare's Richard II. She was also the first woman director to be given sole charge of a production in the main house of theRoyal Shakespeare Theatre.

In 1987 Warner joined theRoyal Shakespeare Company, where she directedTitus Andronicus and where she also began her long-time collaboration withFiona Shaw.^{[citation needed]} Warner and Shaw have collaborated on many plays, includingElectra (RSC);The Good Person of Sezuan (1989,National Theatre);Hedda Gabler (1991, TheAbbey Theatre andBBC2); the controversialRichard II, with Shaw in the title role, also at the National Theatre (1995) and televised by BBC2;Footfalls, whose radical staging so enraged theBeckett estate that the production was pulled during its run;The PowerBook, at the National Theatre, a dramatisation ofJeanette Winterson's novel;Medea (2000–2001, Queen's Theatre andBroadway); andShakespeare'sJulius Caesar, in which Shaw played the small part ofPortia. The production starredRalph Fiennes andSimon Russell Beale; first staged at theBarbican Centre, it later toured Europe.^{[citation needed]}

Shaw and Warner toured the world withT. S. Eliot'sThe Waste Land, which began inWilton's Music Hall in London'sEast End^{[citation needed]}. Her work began to focus on the link of drama to places, a theme which was expanded upon in her Angel Project.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, following negotiations with the Beckett estate, Warner directed Shaw inHappy Days at the National Theatre, which toured internationally including at the ancient amphitheatre atEpidaurus in Greece andBrooklyn Academy of Music in New York, followed in 2009 byMother Courage and Her Children (with Shaw in the title role) at the Olivier Theatre at the National.^{[citation needed]}

She returned to the Barbican Centre in 2011 to directThe School for Scandal.^{[citation needed]}

Warner has also worked extensively in field of opera and classical music, including a production ofThe Diary of One Who Disappeared byJanáček starringIan Bostridge; a staging of theSt John Passion atEnglish National Opera; a controversial staging ofMozart'sDon Giovanni atGlyndebourne;^[3][6]Wozzeck forOpera North;Death in Venice andTansy Davies'Between Worlds at English National Opera; andHenry Purcell'sDido and Aeneas withLes Arts Florissants inVienna,Paris, andAmsterdam.^{[citation needed]}

Other notable productions include opening the 2015/15 season atLa Scala, Milan, withFidelio conducted byDaniel Barenboim andTchaikovsky'sEugene Onegin at theMetropolitan Opera in New York in the 2013/2014 season.^{[citation needed]}

She frequently collaborates with Canadian set designerMichael Levine.^[7]

Warner directed the 1999 filmThe Last September, starringMichael Gambon andMaggie Smith.^{[citation needed]}

This section of abiography of a living persondoes notinclude anyreferences or sources. Please help by addingreliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately. Find sources: "Deborah Warner" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(November 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

• 1988Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director –Titus Andronicus
• 1992Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director of a Play –Hedda Gabler
• 1992 Chevalier of theOrdre des Arts et des Lettres^{[citation needed]}
• 2006 Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE), "for services to drama"^[8]

• 1997Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play –The Waste Land
• 2003 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play –Medea
• 2003Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play –Medea
• 2008 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play –Happy Days

This section of abiography of a living persondoes notinclude anyreferences or sources. Please help by addingreliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately. Find sources: "Deborah Warner" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(November 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

• Deborah Warner at theInternet Broadway Database
• Deborah Warner atIMDb

• 1959 births
• Living people
• Alumni of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
• Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
• English theatre directors
• British women theatre directors
• Laurence Olivier Award winners
• British opera directors
• People from Oxfordshire
• Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
• People educated at Sidcot School
• People educated at St. Clare's, Oxford
• Female opera directors
• Shakespearean directors

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Pages containing London Gazette template with parameter supp set to y
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use British English from March 2013
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Use dmy dates from June 2022
• Articles with hCards
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from November 2024
• BLP articles lacking sources from November 2024
• All BLP articles lacking sources
• IBDB name template using Wikidata