Benedict Andrews is an Australian theatre and opera director, now resident in Iceland. His directing work has won and been nominated for various awards including Olivier Awards, London Critics’ Circle Awards, Iceland’s Gríman Awards and Australia’s Helpmann Awards. Benedict’s adaptations for the stage include The Maids (with Andrew Upton), The War of the Roses (with Tom Wright), Life is a Dream (with Beatrix Christian), and his own versions of Chekhov’s The Seagull and Three Sisters. Benedict directed A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic theatre, London, in July 2014 and La Bohème at the Dutch National Opera in December 2014. His first feature film Una had its world premiere at the 43rd Telluride Film Festival in September 2016.
A collection of Benedict’s plays — including Like A Sun, Every Breath, The Stars, Geronimo, and Gloria — is now available from Oberon Books. Every Breath has been translated into German and Portuguese. Gloria premiered at the Griffin Theatre Company in Sydney in September 2016
The peripatetic life of an international theatre director offers plenty of down time a long way from home. Benedict Andrews devotes this more often than not to his poetry, which has been unpublished up until now. Lens Flare (2015) his first poetry collection, won the 2016 Mary Gilmore Prize for the best first collection of poetry published in Australia .
