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Neil Armfield AO is a leading Australian director of theatre, opera and film. Alongside Rachel Healy, Neil was Artistic Director of Adelaide Festival between 2017 and 2022. Prior to that, Neil was the inaugural Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre, which he also co-founded, for 17 years.
As Artistic Director of Belvoir, and for other companies, Neil has directed well over 100 productions, with a focus on new and Indigenous writing, Shakespeare, David Hare and Patrick White. Some highlights include; The Tempest, Hamlet, Up the Road, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Keating!, Toy Symphony, Dallas Winmar’s Aliwa, Angels in America, A Cheery Soul, Signal Driver, The Blind Giant is Dancing and Things I KnowTo Be True.
Neil’s production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman opened in late 2023 to glowing reviews. Produced by GWB Entertainment and Red Line Productions at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne, it starred Anthony LaPaglia and Alison Whyte. After the success of the Melbourne season, the play will be presented at the Theatre Royal Sydney in May/June 2024.
In 2022, Neil directed the world premiere of the oratorio Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan by Joseph Twist at the Adelaide Festival, and Glyndebourne Festival’s production of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Neil directed the same production of Hamlet at Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper in July 2023. For the 2021 Adelaide Festival, Neil directed the Australian premiere of A German Life by Christopher Hampton, starring Robyn Nevin, as well as Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Festival Theatre. Later that year he directed an acclaimed production of Rameau’s comic masterpiece Platée for Pinchgut Opera.
In addition to his extensive work in Australia, many of Neil’s productions have played internationally. These include Cloudstreet (toured to London, Dublin, Zurich, New York), The Diary of a Madman (with Geoffrey Rush, toured to Moscow, St Petersburg, New York), Exit The King (Broadway), The Book of Everything (toured to New York), The Judas Kiss (toured Australia with Bille Brown, London, New York and Toronto with Rupert Everett), The Secret River (adapted by Andrew Bovell, toured to Edinburgh Festival and London) and the world premiere of David Hare’s I’m Not Running for National Theatre in London.
Neil frequently collaborates with major opera companies, having directed productions at The Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, Zurich Opera, Bregenz Festival, Washington National Opera, Opera Australia, Pinchgut, Canadian Opera, Welsh National Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. In addition to classics by Mozart, Britten and Wagner, Neil directed the premieres of Frankie and The Eighth Wonder by Alan John, Whitsunday by Brian Howard, Love Burns by Graeme Koehne and Bliss and Hamlet by Brett Dean.
For screen, Neil directed and co-wrote the feature film Candy, starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, which screened at over twenty international films festivals including In Competition at the Berlinale. Neil was awarded Best Adapted Screenplay at the AFI Awards and an AWGIE for Best Screenplay. Neil’s second feature film Holding the Man premiered at Sydney Film Festival in 2015. For television, Neil directed miniseries Edens Lost for ABC (AFI Award Best Director and Best Mini-Series), The Fisherman’s Wake (by Andrew Bovell), which won an ATOM Award for Best Original TV Production, and Coral Island (by Nick Enright).
Over his distinguished career, Neil has received 2 AFI Awards, 12 Helpmann Awards and several Sydney Theatre, Victorian Green Room and Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Awards. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Adelaide, Sydney and NSW Universities, and in 2007 was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia.
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