Rourke, Josie

Rourke received higher education in Cambridge , she studied English at New Hall College for Women (now Murray Edwards College), where she began to stage her first performances.

After graduating from university in 1998, she worked for some time at the Cambridge Center for the Arts, after which she moved to London . 9 months after the move, she got a job as an assistant director at the Donmar Warehouse Theater, whose artistic director at the time was Sam Mendes .

During the year of internship, Joji Rourke managed to work as an assistant for such directors as Sam Mendes , Phyllida Lloyd , Nicholas Heitner ^[1] . At the end of this period, Rourke independently put on the scene Donmar a new play by Keith Reddin Frame 312 .

After that, for nine years, Rourke staged performances on various stages in England. She was a full-time director of the Royal Court Theater in London. Then for several years she was the deputy director of the Sheffield theater complex.

In 2008, Rourke was appointed artistic director of the Bush Theater, which is known for supporting young authors of plays. Shortly after her appointment, the theater came under reduced subsidies from the English Council of Art History. Rourke filed an appeal and, as a result of the disclosed data, found out that the decision to reduce subsidies was made on the basis of incorrect information. Funding was restored, but the art director had to look for a new place for the theater. In 2011, the theater moved to an old library building ^[2] and opened its doors with a 24-hour marathon called “66 books” - a cycle of 66 plays with 144 actors, which Rourke directed with 22 of his colleagues ^[3] .

In 2011, she directed “ Much Ado About Nothing ” at the Wyndhams Theater with David Tennant and Catherine Tate in the lead roles ^[4] . The production was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Prize .

In the same year, Josie Rourke was appointed artistic director of Donmar Warehouse , thus becoming the first woman in this post, as well as the first woman in the post of artistic director of a major London theater ^[5] . Over the years of her leadership, Rourke has staged a number of successful and recognized productions, attracting famous actors to them. Among them: “ Coriolanus ” with Tom Hiddleston and Mark Gatiss ^[6] , “ Berenice ” with Ann-Mary Duff and Stephen Campbell Moore ^[7] , “ City of Angels ” ( Laurence Olivier Prize ) ^[6] , “Private Life” ^{[ 5]} with Michelle Terry in the role of Rourke herself, “ Voting ” with Judy Dench , “ Dangerous Liaisons ” ^[5] with Janet MacTyr and Dominic West , “ St. John ” with Gemma Arterton , the musical The Committee, co-written by Rourke with Hadley Fraser , an actor and singer, with whom she worked in many performances.

Josie Rourke’s three productions ( Coriolanus , Dangerous Liaisons , and St. John ’s) were broadcast in cinemas as part of the National Live Theater project. The play “ Voting ” was shown live on the More4 TV channel directly during the last hour and a half of the vote ^[8] .

From 2012 to 2016, under the leadership of Rourke, the ambitious project of Phyllida Lloyd was realized: on a time stage specially constructed near Kings Cross Station, three Shakespeare plays ( Julius Caesar , Henry IV and The Tempest ) were performed by a troupe consisting of exclusively from actresses ^{[9] [10]} .

In January 2018, Rourke and her longtime friend and producer Kate Pakenham announced that they would leave their posts at the Donmar Warehouse in 2019 ^[6] .

On December 7, 2018, the world premiere of directorial debut Josie Rourke took place in the United States. The film “ Mary is the Queen of Scotland ” tells about the confrontation between Mary Stuart (performed by Saoirse Ronan ) and Elizabeth I ( Margot Robbie ), in the struggle for the English throne ^[11] . In the UK, the film appeared on the screens on January 18, 2019 ^[12] .