Humanities Cultural Programme Live Event: Katie Mitchell in conversation with Ben Whishaw

Big Tent - Live Events! Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme,
one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman
Centre for the Humanities. 'Liveness'. Biographies: Katie Mitchell
is a British theatre director whose unique style and uncompromising
methods have divided both critics and audiences. Though sometimes
causing controversy, her productions have been innovative and
groundbreaking, and have established her as one of the UK’s leading
names in contemporary performance. She was born in Berkshire in
1964, grew up in the small village of Hermitage and read English at
Magdalen College, Oxford. She began her theatre career in 1986 with
a job at the King’s Head Theatre as a production assistant. She
became an assistant director at Paines Plough a year later, and
then took the same post at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988.
In 1990, she founded her own company, Classics on a Shoestring,
where she directed a number of pioneering and highly acclaimed
productions including the House of Bernada Alba and Women of Troy.
In the decades with followed, Mitchell worked as an associate
director with the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare
Company and the National Theatre. Whilst at the RSC, she was
responsible for programming at the now defunct black box space, The
Other Place, and her production of The Phoenician Women earned her
the Evening Standard Award for Best Director. Her numerous theatre
credits include 2071 and Night Songs for the Royal Court, The
Cherry Orchard for the Young Vic, The Trial of Ubu for Hampstead
Theatre, Henry VI Part III (to date her only Shakespeare
production) for the RSC and A Woman Killed with Kindness and The
Seagull at the National Theatre. She has also directed opera,
working with the Royal Opera House and English National Opera. An
exponent of Stanislavski techniques and naturalism, her style was
strongly influenced by the time she spent working in Eastern Europe
early in her career. Her work is characterised by the creation on
stage of a highly distinctive environment, the intensity of the
emotions portrayed and by the realism of the acting. Mitchell’s
work has pushed boundaries and explored technique and, not just
confined to the stage, has also taken her into other creative
mediums. She has directed for film and television with work
including The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd and The Turn of the Screw. In
2011, together with video maker, Leo Warner, Mitchell devised an
immersive video installation called Five Truths for the Victoria
and Albert Museum which explored the nature of truth in theatrical
production. Ben Whishaw is a multi-award winning English actor in
film, television, and theatre. He trained at RADA, and his work in
theatre quickly brought acclaim including a much-lauded Hamlet at
the Old Vic with Trevor Nunn in 2004. He has been directed by Katie
Mitchell multiple times, including The Seagull at the National
Theatre in 2006, and Norma Jeane Baker of Troy at the Shed in New
York last year. In television his work ranges from BAFTA-winning
performances in Rupert Goold's Richard II for the BBC in 2012 to A
Very English Scandal in 2018. Among many film roles, he is perhaps
best known for taking on the part of Q in the Bond films since
2012’s Skyfall and for delighting audiences young and old as the
voice of Paddington in the hit movies in 2014 and 2017.