Rufus Norris
Theatre, Film and TV Nick Marston
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Biography
Rufus Norris is a multi-award winning theatre director who came to prominence in 2001 with his production of Afore Night Came at the Young Vic, for which he won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 2004 He won his second Evening Standard Award and the Critics Circle Award for his production of Festen.
Since then, Rufus has directed a host of critically acclaimed shows, among them an adaptation of DBC Pierre's Booker Prize winning novel Vernon God Little at the Young Vic, and a West End revival of Cabaret, which won 2 Oliviers. Rufus' 2008 Broadway production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, starring Laura Linney and Ben Daniels, won five Tony Award nominations, including Best Revival. His production of London Road in 2011 at the National Theatre, won the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical. In May 2013 Rufus directed the opening production at the Shed space at the National, Table by Tanya Ronder.
In 2009, Rufus made his screen debut with the short film King Bastard, written by Tanya Ronder and produced by BBC Films. His debut feature Broken opened Critics Week at Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and went on to win Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards. Rufus' second feature is the screen adaptation of London Road for Cuba Pictures and BBC Films.
Rufus is the current Artistic Director of the National Theatre, having taken on the role in April 2015.
CV
Film
Director
Rufus' debut feature about a young girl living in North London
Theatre
Director
New translation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera
Musical inspired by Alice in Wonderland
Rufus' first production as Artistic Director of the National Theatre
Adaptation of the non-fiction book by Katherine Boo set in the Annawadi slum in Mumbai
Play set in Nigeria in the 1940's about the King's chief horseman
Musical set in a cabaret club in Berlin in the 1930s
Rufus' first production at the National Theatre about a young boy working on a market shoe stall in the 1980s
New version of Federico Garcia Lorca's play Bodas de Sangre
Dark play about two flatmates who are drawn into the compelling world of their neighbour who is a victim of domestic abuse
Drama about unfinished business between two friends
Play based around the infamous murder case involving Lizzie Borden
Production of William Shakespeare's play set on Prospero's island
Comedy about a Palestinian pomegranate farmer attempting to deliver his crop to a fruit merchant in Ramallah
Community project for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
Short piece commissioned by ENO Studio
Two men are left in charge of a corner shop when their parents go on holiday to India
Cycle of mini-plays about forming relationships at school
Play centred around a motley group of characters at a coastal bar in California
Tragicomedy about a father and his sons attempting to sort out their feelings about women
A dancer with a broken leg spends a winter convalescing and listening to the people downstairs
Play about a man struggling with the death of his only daughter