Simon McBurney

Director, writer and actor Simon McBurney is considered one of the most innovative, mercurial and influential theatre-makers working today. In 1983 he co-founded the company Complicité, since when all his work has been made through a deeply researched and highly collaborative process which fuses a profound belief that all aspects of the theatre should challenge the limits of theatrical form. As well as writing and creating original works, Simon has brought great plays to the stage and adapted numerous works of literature. He adapted and directed Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita for the 2012 Festival d’Avignon, shown at the Wiener Festwochen in the same year, and Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity in 2015 for Schaubühne Berlin. His opera work includes directing A Dog’s Heart (2010), a new opera by Sasha Raskatov based the novella by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Magic Flute (2012) and Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (2017). In 2020 he directed Alban Berg’s Wozzeck with Sir Simon Rattle conducting.
Simon McBurney’s work continually returns to political, social and philosophical questions of the way we live, think and act as a society. These aspects are all present in the award-winning The Encounter (2015), described as ‘one of the most fully-immersive theatre pieces ever created’ by The New York Times and shown at Wiener Festwochen 2016.
Recipient of several prestigious awards, Simon McBurney was Artiste Associé at the 2012 Festival d’Avignon and holds honorary doctorates at several universities including Lund in Sweden, London Metropolitan University and Cambridge University.