Simon Stone
The Australian actor, director, and writer Simon Stone was born in Basel and studied in Cambridge. He returned to Australia in 2007 to create the Hayloft Project. The first play by his company, Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening, was a major success and quickly established his reputation abroad. It was followed by Chekhov's Platonov and Seneca's Thyestes. The performance of Ibsen's The Wild Duck at the Holland Festival in 2013 was enthusiastically received. Simon Stone likes to work on plays from the repertoire which he leads, with help from his team, towards more intimate territories, on the edge of cinematographic performance. Starting with the characters, he doesn't so much rewrite the plays as build scenari based on improvisation. An avid reader of mythology and classical authors, he believes in the power of those texts to elevate the questioning of the human condition: “One can't make theatre based on fear and compromises. Without argument, there is no art.” His first feature film, The Daughter (inspired by Ibsen's The Wild Duck) was released in 2016. Simon Stone will be appearing for the first time at the Festival d'Avignon.
