Claudette Bryanston

Claudette Bryanston is an English theatre director and practitioner of applied drama.^[1][2]

Bryanston has an MA in Contemporary Performance from Middlesex University.^[3]

In 1983 she co-founded Classworks Theatre Company, Cambridge.^[4] Classworks was initially the first youth theatre in Cambridge, meeting at the ADC Theatre^[4] and securing the first patronage given by HRH Prince Edward Earl of Wessex.^[5] Its productions toured to Germany, Finland, Poland and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.^[4] In 1988 it won the first ever award given by The Independent for Best Production with The Heart of a Dog, by Mikhail Bulgakov.^[6]

Bryanston is the artistic director of Santé Theatre and Media company^[7] which she founded in 2000. In 2003 she was appointed a Senior Research Fellow in Creativity and Performance at the Institute of Health at the University of Warwick.^[8] From November 2008 to June 2009 she was also the Warwick University/Royal Shakespeare Company Fellow in Creativity and Performance.^[9]

She was appointed Guest Director of the Master in Fine Arts in stage direction programme at Boston University in America^[10] and has published academic articles on the practice of applied theatre.^[11] She has worked closely with the English playwright Edward Bond, from whom she commissioned the play "The Children", directing its first performance in 2000.^[12] She has also worked with English writers Mike Kenny^[13] and Robin French^[8] and American playwright Deborah Lake Fortson.^[14][15] Bryanston has also been commissioned to direct productions by the Coventry Belgrade Theatre^[16] which is well known for developing the practice of theatre in education, and in the community.^[17]

Bryanston's stage direction has been described as "visually incisive" by The Sunday Times and "extraordinary and impressive" by The Guardian.^[10]