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Biography - Jonathan Chadwick

Jonathan Chadwick was educated at Midhurst Grammar School and Cambridge University. He started work in the theatre as an Assistant Director at the Royal Court Theatre where he worked with Bill Gaskill on LEAR by Edward Bond and was the Assistant Director of WEST OF SUEZ by John Osborne with Ralph Richardson, Nigel Hawthorne and Penelope Wilton. He ran an acting workshop at the Institut des Formations Cinematographiques in Paris working with the school's director, Noel Burch. He joined the Berwick Street Film Collective and contributed to their work on Northern Ireland.

He started his professional directing career with a double bill of Strindberg's MISS JULIE and Ionescu's THE LESSON at the Northcott Theatre Exeter. He went on to direct CORIOLANUS at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre and THE TEMPEST at the Palace Theatre Watford. His British Premiere production of THE MOTHER by Bertold Brecht for the Half Moon Theatre in London transferred to The Roundhouse. His directing work has been various and includes work on 42nd STREET at Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the British Premiere of THE ART OF SELF DEFENSE by Trish Johnson at the Croydon Warehouse. More recently he worked alongside Brian Astbury at Arts Threshold where he directed THE PHANTOM LADY by Calderon, THE INVESTIGATION by Peter Weiss and a company-created piece, HEROINES.

He worked with writer Steve Gooch at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and continued to work there. He subsequently worked as a director at Welsh College of Speech and Drama and Rose Bruford College but his main work in this area has been at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and at Mountview Theatre School where he directed the One Year Post Graduate Acting and Musical Theatre Course. Significant productions have been VICTORY by Howard Barker at LAMDA and WAR AND PEACE (Piscator's adaptation of Tolstoy's novel) at RADA. He also has a longstanding relationship with Nottingham Trent University's Theatre Design Department. He was a Visiting Professor at Rice University in Houston Texas where he directed KING LEAR. He directed DRUMS IN THE NIGHT by Brecht for University College Toronto Canada as a contribution to the Brecht 30 years After Festival, working closely with translator and dramaturg, John Willett. Supported by the British Council he directed Euripides' BACCHAE at Flinders University South Australia.

While he was at university he wrote and directed THE PERFORMANCE about Jan Palach's suicide and the Warsaw Pact countries' invasion of Czechoslovakia. He co-directed a film about the rehearsals, REHEARSALS FOR THE PERFORMANCE which won an Award of Outstanding Merit at the International Film Festival in Chicago. He co-wrote and directed two plays (THE NINE DAYS AND SALTLEY GATES and TIGHTEN YOUR BELT) for Foco Novo Theatre Company and was on the board of directors. He also directed plays for other national touring companies, 7.84 (OUR LAND, OUR LIVES by Steve Gooch), Avon Touring and Grand Union Music Theatre Company (THE LIGHTNING AND THE RAINBOW, SONGLINES by David Bradford and Tony Haynes).

He was the Associate Director of the Theatre Royal Statford East where he directed world premieres by Rony Robinson and David Holman as well as an award-winning production of CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE by Brecht with Deborah Findlay and Tom Wilkinson. He was the Artistic Director of the Vanguard Company at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield where he directed world premieres by Karim Alrawi, David Sheasby, Stephen Lowe, Ursula Jones and Rony Robinson. He was also Artistic Director of Theatre Foundry based in the West Midlands where he produced a wide variety of theatre including the direction of LITTLE MATCH GIRL by Rony Robinson and MACBETH by Shakespeare. He produced a large scale community play, BOOMTOWN by David Calcott and a series of theatre interventions entitled MAKING THEATRE.

He was a co-founder of Paddington Arts,the performance and video company based in North Westminster, for whom he directed a number of projects including work on two six-part television series in collaboration with TVS called RUNNING LOOSE, directed the video of Maria Oshodi's ROCKINGHAM HOUSE and produced the video of her SPRING SEVENTEEN. He was the Chair of the Board of Directors for several years.

He is currently Co-Artistic Director of Meeting Ground Theatre Comapny having first worked with the company on the LUDDITE PROJECT. He continues his work in drama schools and persues his writing work, having completed film scripts for Zephyr Films and Oxymoron Films in the recent period. He has recently directed AS YOU LIKE IT for the Anton Pann Theatre in Rimnicu Valcea, Romania.

1st August 1999

Jonathan Chadwick

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