Luk
Perceval began his theatrical career in 1979 as an actor at the
National Theatre in Antwerp, which he left five years later to set up
his own independent group, ‘Blauwe Maandag Compagnie’. He staged
many productions with the ‘BMCie’, including the Shakespeare
marathon, ‘Ten oorlog’. The German language version entitled
‘Schlachten!’ premiered at the Salzburg Festspielen in 1999. In
2000 the production was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen, voted
Premiere of the Year and awarded the ZDF/3SAT ‘Innovation Prize.’
In 1998, Perceval was made Director of the National Theatre in
Antwerp, which he restructured to ‘Het Toneelhuis’. In Germany he
developed productions including Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’
at the schauspielhannover, and at the Munich Kammerspielen he staged
‘Autumn Dream’ by Jon Fosse (invited to the 2002 Berlin
Theatertreffen) and Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ in an adaptation by
Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel. This production was adopted into
the Thalia repertoire in 2009. As an opera director he has worked at
the Stuttgart State Opera, the Hanover State Opera and the State
Opera at Unter den Linden in Berlin. His productions of ‘Othello’
and ‘Uncle Vanya’ have been performed at international theatre
festivals to great acclaim. From 2005 to 2008, Luk Perceval was
Director in Residence at the Schaubühne at Lehniner Platz in Berlin,
and in 2004 and 2007 his productions ‘Andromache’ and ‘Maria
Stuart’ were awarded the Friedrich Luft Prize by the Berliner
Morgenpost. Since 2000, Perceval has been developing a series of
theatre films based on his productions and has completed documentary
films, ‘Düsseldorf mon Amour’ and ‘Die verborgene Stadt’.
Luk
Perceval has been Principal Director at Thalia since the beginning of
the 2009/2010 season. Furthermore, from 2008-2011 Perceval acted as
Course Director for Directing and Drama at the Academy of Performing
Arts in Baden-Württemberg. Over the past few seasons at Thalia he
has staged, ‘The truth about THE KENNEDYS’, ‘Nach der Probe’
by Ingmar Bergman, ‘Kinder der Sonne’ by Maxim Gorki, ‘Große
Freiheit Nr. 7’ based on the film by Helmut Käutner, ‘Hamlet’
by William Shakespeare in an adaptation by Feridun Zaimoglu and
Günter Senkel and ‘Draußen vor der Tür’ by Wolfgang Borchert
(Premiere 2011), which received the Golden Mask in the category of
‘Best Foreign Production Presented in Russia in 2013’ in Moscow
in April 2014, a national Russian theatre prize, given out every year
in all areas of performing arts.
Moreover,
in the 2011/2012 season he collaborated with the Ruhrtriennale to
stage Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ as well as Anton Chekov’s ‘The
Cherry Orchard’. His production of ‘Jeder stirbt für sich
allein,’ based on the novel by Hans Fallada, celebrated its
premiere during the 2012/2013 season and was invited to the Berlin
Festspiele in May 2013.
‘Jeder
stirbt für sich allein’ was voted ‘Production of the Year 2013’
in the annual critics’ vote held by ‘Theaterheute’ magazine,
and Annette Kurz’s set design was voted ‘Set Design of the Year
2013.’
In
2013, Luk Perceval was awarded the German theatre prize, the ‘Faust’
in the category of Theatre Direction.
In
2012/13 he brought ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Fyodor M.
Dostoyevsky to the Thalia stage. During the 2013/14 season he
directed the farce, ‘Der nackte Wahnsinn’. Moreover he
developed ‘FRONT - Im Westen nichts Neues’, a polyphony inspired
by Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, ‘Le
Feu’ by Henri Barbusse and contemporary documents, in collaboration
with the NTGent. The international production has been invited to
festivals including Festival Perspective 2014 in Saarbrücken and the
Edinburgh International Festival 2014. ‘FRONT – Im Westen nichts
Neues’ was also invited to ‘1914 – 2014. One Hundred European
Years’, the international summer festival hosted by German
President Joachim Gauck at 9pm on 27th June in the grounds of the
Bellevue Palace in Berlin.
Luk Perceval’s personal
website:www.lukperceval.info
You
can find Luk Perceval’s video diary
here:http://vimeo.com/lukperceval
