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Andrew Upton Andrew Upton i(A69597 works by) (a.k.a. A. Upton)
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Andrew Upton took a Diploma of Art in Dramatic Art in Sydney, majoring in directing. Before moving to London, he worked in continuity for a number of features, including Babe 2, and as Second Unit Director on the Australian television series Big Sky. He also directed two Writers' Studios at the Australian National Playwrights' Centre (1995 and 1996).

In 1999, Upton wrote and directed Bangers, which starred his wife Cate Blanchett (q.v.). In 2006, he wrote the film Gone, which was directed by Ringan Ledwidge (q.v.). With Blanchett, Upton has formed Dirty Films to develop feature projects.

As a playwright, Upton penned adaptations of Hedda Gabler, The Cherry Orchard, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Don Juan (with Marion Potts) for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC, q.v.), and Maxim Gorky's Phillistines for London's Royal National Theatre. His original play Riflemind, with Hugo Weaving as an ageing rock star planning a comeback tour, opened at the STC on 5 October 2007 to favourable reviews.

Upton and Blanchett served two three-year terms as co-artistic directors of the STC, 2008-2010 and 2011-2013.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

Through the Looking Glass 2008 single work musical theatre opera 'On a boating trip with seven year old Alice Liddell, Carroll gifted her with the fantastic story which would soon be indelibly associated with her name - a gift that would re-cast her as a pawn in the fantastic underworld of The Looking Glass. This glass is as much kaleidoscope as mirror, where space and time are refracted, splintering into chaos as rhyming flowers, roaring royals and reluctant foodstuffs wage war on sense and sensibility. While beneath it all stretches the long shadow of this mad world's creator, Master of Divinity, Lewis Carroll ... the writer and photographer - whose twinned passions he employed to freeze the object of his affection, where age and memory could not work their ways. Is this what Alice comes to discover in her looking glass: that her image, perhaps, was never her own?
2008 winner Victorian Green Room Awards New Operatic Work
y separately published work icon Hedda Gabler ( trans. Marit Breivik Andersen )expression Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2004 Z1463084 2004 single work drama

'Andrew Upton has unravelled the mystery of Ibsen's masterpiece and constructed a psychological thriller of cinematic intensity and power. His superb adaption [sic] gives Australian readers a fresh and exciting insight into one of the great dramatic works of modern literature.'

Source: Libraries Australia. (Sighted 29/01/2008).

2013 nominated Helpmann Awards for Performing Arts in Australia Best Play for 2012 production
Last amended 14 Jan 2014 10:58:09
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