Catherine Alexander

BA, SFHEA
Job title
Reader in Theatre Making
Catherine Alexander
Orcid ID
0000-0001-9072-6021
Institutional Repository

Profile

I am a practising theatre maker and director working in a range of contexts including theatre, opera, video and installation. I am artistic director of Quiconque and an associate director for Complicité. My work is created with a wide range of collaborators including actors, writers, scientists, mathematicians, politicians and artists. The work is research led and cross-disciplinary and ranges from very small scale to international touring work.

I read Drama at Manchester University before being employed by Complicité as researcher, assistant director, writer and teacher in 1994. In 1997 I moved to Paris to train at L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq (including two years at the Laboratory of Movement Studies). In 1999 I founded my company Quiconque which initially worked in County Clare in Ireland producing accessible small scale touring theatre that played at festivals, touring venues, schools and pubs. I also re-joined Complicité as associate director and have continued to develop work with them ever since. Most recently I adapted and directed a children’s show for Complicité and Polka Theatre which was premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019.

I started working as a visiting lecturer at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2000 on the MA Advanced Theatre Practice. In 2006 I was asked to create a new BA (Hons) Acting specialising in collaboratively devised work. The course emphasises the creation and production of new theatre and embraces an international and multi-disciplinary methodology. Students graduate with the skills to work in classical and contemporary performance as well as being accomplished makers of their own work. This course is in creative partnership with Complicité and has trained over one hundred actors from over forty countries.

Other teaching contexts include: Aalto University, Finland, Central Saint Martins, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Royal College of Art, Tate Modern, Barbican, National Theatre, Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, Magnetic North Festival, Ottowa, Avignon Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, CPD / INSET workshops and Complicité open workshops. I’ve facilitated workshops, sat on panels and presented papers in a wide range of academic and professional settings.

Areas of Expertise

  • New methodologies for creating devised and compositional theatre
  • Applying theatre-making practice to models of actor training
  • Working with space as an acting and creative tool
  • Lecoq work
  • Sound design led theatre processes
  • Devised adaptations from novels
  • Design integrated work including video design

Key Publications

2021. ‘Making Complicité’s A Disappearing Number: Patterns, Permanence and Mathematics’. (London, Digital Theatre)

2019. ‘A Concise Introduction to Complicité’. (London, Digital Theatre)

2018. Theatre de Complicité and Storytelling. (London. British Library)

2016. ‘A conversation about The Magic Flute between William Kentridge and Simon McBurney’ in the Routledge Companion to Lecoq edited by Mark Evans and Rick Kemp (Abingdon, Routledge).

2010. Complicite -The Elephant Vanishes’ in Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes (Manchester - Manchester University Press), pp.59 - 80

2000. ‘Devising’ written in consultation with Simon McBurney: available as a pdf from www.complicite.org

External Practice

2020. Collaborator Ghost Play New Diorama Theatre R and D (Director David Byrne)

2020. Collaborator On Slowness Battersea Arts Centre R and D (with Ann Marie Kerr)

2020. Director, Fahrenheit 451, Theatre Peckham / Central / Complicité

2019. Director and Writer, I’ll Take You To Mrs Cole, Pleasance / Complicité

2018. Director, Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty, Pleasance / Complicité / schools tour

2017. Performance director, Super Troupers, Southbank

2016. Performance director, Adventures in Moominland, Southbank

2015. Director PUSH, New Diorama Theatre

2012. Movement director, Wild Oats, Bristol Old Vic (director Mark Rosenblatt)

2011/12. Associate director, The Master and Margarita Avignon Festival and Tour, Barbican (director Simon McBurney)

2010/11. Director, SOLD, Pleasance Theatre (Winner of the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award and Media Award for best play)

2010. Director, The Gypsy Bible, Opera North

2008. Director, Touching Space Royal Academy of Arts / Complicite 

2007-2008. Associate director. A Disappearing Number BITE festival, Barbican (director Simon McBurney)

2004-2005. Associate director, The Elephant Vanishes BITE festival, Barbican and Lincoln Centre FestivalSetagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo (director Simon McBurney)

2000-2008. Creative development and casting. Shunkin BITE festival, Barbican and Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo (director Simon McBurney)

Register of Interest

Nothing to declare.