JOHN BELL
Artistic Director
John Bell is one of Australia’s most acclaimed theatre personalities. In a career of acting and directing, John Bell has been instrumental in shaping the Australian theatre industry as we know it.
After graduating from Sydney University in 1962, John Bell worked for the Old Tote Theatre Company, all of Australia’s state theatre companies and was an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the United Kingdom. As co-founder of Sydney’s Nimrod Theatre Company, John Bell presented many productions of landmark Australian plays including David Williamson’s Travelling North, The Club and The Removalists. He also initiated an Australian Shakespeare style with Nimrod productions such as Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth.
In 1990 John Bell founded The Bell Shakespeare Company where his productions have included Hamlet, Romeo And Juliet, The Taming Of The Shrew, Richard 3, Pericles, Henry 4, Henry 5, Julius Caesar, Antony And Cleopatra, The Comedy Of Errors, Wars Of The Roses, Measure For Measure, Macbeth and As You Like It, as well as Goldoni’s The Servant Of Two Masters, Gogol’s The Government Inspector and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist.
John Bell’s Shakespeare roles include Hamlet, Shylock, Henry V, Richard III, Macbeth, Malvolio, Berowne, Petruchio, Leontes, Coriolanus, Prospero, King Lear and Titus Andronicus. He played the title role in two co-productions with Queensland Theatre Company: Richard 3 and Heiner Müller’s Anatomy Titus Fall Of Rome: A Shakespeare Commentary. John Bell has also directed a production of Madame Butterfly for an Oz Opera national tour.
John Bell is an Officer of the Order of Australia and the Order of the British Empire. He has an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the Universities of Sydney, New South Wales and Newcastle. In 1997 he was named by the National Trust of Australia as one of Australia’s Living Treasures. In 2003 the Australia Business Arts Foundation awarded John the Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Cultural Leadership Award.
His many awards as an actor and director include a Helpmann Award for Best Actor (Richard 3, 2002), a Producers and Directors Guild Award for Lifetime Achievement and the JC Williamson Award (2009) for extraordinary contribution to Australia’s live entertainment industry.
MARION POTTS
Associate Artistic Director
Artistic Director Mind's Eye
Marion Potts is Bell Shakespeare’s Associate Artistic Director and Artistic Director of its development arm,
Mind’s Eye. For Bell Shakespeare she has directed
Hamlet,
Othello and
Venus & Adonis (a co-production with Malthouse Theatre) as well as the
Actors At Work programme.
Her other directing credits include The Wonderful World of Dissocia,Volpone, Don Juan, Life After George, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Crucible, Navigating, Del Del, Closer, The Herbal Bed, What is the Matter with Mary Jane?, Pygmalion, Where Are We Now?, The Café Latte Kid, The Blessing and Two Weeks with the Queen for Sydney Theatre Company; Equus, The Torrents, Gary’s House, A Number and The Goat or Who is Sylvia? for State Theatre Company of South Australia; Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset for Queensland Theatre Company; Grace for Melbourne Theatre Company; The Popular Mechanicals 1 and 2 (Associate Director) and The Frogs (Assistant Director) for Company B; Big Hair in America and Wonderlands for HotHouse Theatre; Dreaming Transportation for Performing Lines and the Sydney Opera House; and The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table for HotHouse Theatre/Griffin Theatre Company.
Marion was Resident Director for Sydney Theatre Company from 1995-1999, and Artistic Director of Pulse (STC) from 1997-1999. She curated the 2003 National Playwrights’ Conference, was a chairperson of World Interplay and a member of the Theatre Board of the Australia Council. She was also a founding member of HotHouse Theatre’s Artistic Directorate.
Marion was awarded the 2006 Helpmann Award for Best Direction of a Play for her production of The Goat or Who is Sylvia? for State Theatre Company of South Australia and Company B.
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