Simon Stone

Stone is Australian, but was born in Basel and grew up in Cambridge and Melbourne.[1] His father, Stuart Stone, was a biochemist and his mother, Eleanor Mackie, a veterinary scientist. Stuart Stone died of a heart attack aged 45; Stone, aged 12, witnessed it, and has spoken about the ways in which that trauma has influenced his work.[2][3]

In 2007 Stone founded the independent theatre company The Hayloft Project and adapted and directed their inaugural production of Frank Wedekind's Frühlings Erwachen. This production was remounted in 2008 at Belvoir St Theatre and was described in The Sydney Morning Herald as "a lean, contained, ultimately furious, liberating production that is well-attuned to Wedekind's poetic rhythms, wit and pubescent discoveries."[4] Other productions Stone adapted and directed for The Hayloft Project include Platonov, 3xSisters, The Suicide and The Only Child, a new version of Henrik Ibsen's Little Eyolf which won the Sydney Theatre Award for Best Independent Production.[5]

In 2009 he directed Aleksei Arbuzov's The Promise for Belvoir. In 2010 he directed and co-wrote with Mark Leonard Winter, Thomas Henning and Chris Ryan a version of Seneca's Thyestes for The Hayloft Project and Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne. He directed The Cherry Orchard for Melbourne Theatre Company in 2013.[6]

In 2011 Stone became the Resident Director at Belvoir. In his first year in the role he wrote and directed The Wild Duck, after Henrik Ibsen, which has become his calling card production and has played internationally, including at the Holland Festival. Also in 2011 he also directed Robyn Nevin in Lally Katz's Neighbourhood Watch for Belvoir and adapted and directed Bertolt Brecht's Baal for the Sydney Theatre Company.[2][7]

Stone is one of the most acclaimed theatre directors on the international circuit, working with several of the most significant companies in European Theatre.

For Theater Basel, where he was a house director from 2015, he has directed Angels in America, John Gabriel Borkman, Three Sisters and the opera die tote Stadt.[8] A companion project with the works of August Strindberg, Hotel Strindberg, premiered at Theater Basel in 2018.[9]

For Ivo van Hove's company Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, he has directed Medea in his own new adaptation, Husbands and Wives, Ibsen House, a new play by Stone which threads together the plots of several of Ibsen's plays in a new modern scenario, and Flight 49, inspired by the novel On Hoop van Zegen by Herman Heijermans.[10][11]

In 2016, Stone premiered an adaptation of Federico García Lorca's Yerma at the Young Vic in London. The production starred Billie Piper in the title role,[12] and was well reviewed, returning for a second run in 2017 before transferring to New York in 2018.[13][14] It won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival in 2017.

Stone directed Luigi Cherubini's opera version of Medea at the 2019 Salzburg Festival.

Stone has acted in the television series John Safran's Music Jamboree, MDA, Blue Heelers, Rush, City Homicide, and the films Jindabyne, Kokoda, Balibo, Blame, and The Eye of the Storm.[15]

Stone's directorial debut film The Daughter premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in Australia on 17 March 2016 and he won Best Adapted Screenplay at the AACTA Awards.[16]

He directed the British drama film The Dig in 2021.[17] It focuses on an archeological dig in Sutton Hoo in 1939.