Joanna Pidcock

I am an Australian-born, UK-based freelance director and dramaturg, with a practice that spans text-based and devised theatre, made anywhere from big theatre venues to unexpected, site-specific and
immersive spaces. My work in theatre interrogates violence and change – personal, structural, societal, emotional, and cultural. I’m interested in work that communicates a strong sense of place, and that experiments with form, context and sensory experience. I was the 2019 British Council delegate to the prestigious Séminaire en Avignon residency, as part of the Festival d’Avignon.

I was longlisted for the 2019 Genesis Future Directors Award at the Young Vic, and I was the 2019 British Council delegate at the Séminaire en Avignon as part of the Festival d’Avignon.

I’m particularly interested in adaptation and translation, and reinvigorating the dramaturgy of classic and canonical work. I love taking stories and giving them new voice by experimenting with form,
context, and sensory experience.

I also write literary non-fiction about nationhood and identity through the lens of landscape and horticulture, with a particular focus on colonialism and its impact on attitudes towards land and space. I was shortlisted for the 2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, and I am currently represented as an essayist by Anna Webber at United Agents.

she/her pronouns

Credits

DIRECTOR, The Optimists, Little Pieces of Gold/Southwark Playhouse, Scratch night, 2019
DIRECTOR, London with a Perfect Skyline, Katzpace/Exploding Whale, 1 week, 2019
DIRECTOR, Orpheus Turns, Melbourne Fringe Festival/Meat Market, 1 week, 2017
DIRECTOR, Old Wives Tales, Tallulah Theatre, 1 week, 2016
DIRECTOR, A Streetcar Named Desire, FLW Theatre, 2 weeks, 2014

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, The Confessions, Alexander Zeldin, National Theatre/CAZ, European tour and NT run 2023/2024
MOVEMENT DIRECTOR, Not Dying, Barbican Centre 2019

LIBRETTIST, After Vita Sexualis, Arts Council Tokyo, 2022
DRAMATURG, [Project in Development], by Alice Birch dir. Katie Mitchell, die Schaubühne
LIBRETTIST, The Garden Party, Royal Opera House, in development 2019/2020
DRAMATURG, Saint Somebody, Camden People's Theatre, 2019

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, I, Joan, Shakespeare's Globe Main Stage, 2022
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, Ravens: Spassky vs. Fischer, Hampstead Theatre Main Stage, 2019/2020
INTERN DIRECTOR, La Maladie de la Mort, by Alice Birch, dir. Katie Mitchell, Theatre au Bouffes du Nord, 2018
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, Angels in America, dir Gary Abrahams, fortyfivedownstairs, 2017
INTERN DIRECTOR, As You Like It, dir. Peter Evans, Bell Shakespeare Company/Sydney Opera House, 2015

I have worked as a directing facilitator and educator for the National Theatre, Rutgers Conservatory at Shakespeare's Globe, and the Sorbonne in Paris, and as a creative writing facilitator for Ministry of Stories

Other work includes chaperoning and working with young actors at the Old Vic, production assistant work, and directing and assistant directing at the University of Melbourne

Training

Librettist Residency, Britten Pears Arts, April 2023
Intimacy Directing Workshop, Young Vic Theatre, with Ita O'Brien, September 2019
Séminaire en Avignon, Festival d’Avignon, British Council, July 2019
Voice for Directors Workshop, Young Vic Theatre, with Cathleen McCarron, May 2019
Fairview Dramaturgy Workshop, Young Vic Theatre, with Nadia Latif, March 2019
Movement Directing Workshop, Young Vic Theatre, with Rachel Nanyonjo, February 2019
Introduction to Opera Directing, Royal Opera House, November 2018
Meisner Technique for Directors, Young Vic Theatre, November 2018
HATCH Mentoring Programme, Melbourne Theatre Company, 1 year, 2017