Michael Bogdanov

Stage director, born in London, UK. He studied at the universities of Dublin, Munich, and the Sorbonne, and went on to direct several major productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In 1986 he became co-founder and artistic director of the touring English Shakespeare Company, whose productions included The Hostage (1995), Timon of Athens (1997), and Chicago (1997). For television he devised and presented Shakespeare Lives (1983) and directed Shakespeare on the Estate (1995). In 2003 he became artistic director of the Wales Theatre Company, and in 2004 directed productions at the Ludlow Castle Open Air Theatre as part of the annual Ludlow Festival. A collection of Shakespearean essays was published in The Director's Cut (2003, 2005).

Michael Bogdanov (born December 15, 1938), is a Welsh theatre director.

Since the 1970s, Michael Bogdanov has established himself as one of Britain's leading theatre directors, from new works to modern reinterpretations of Shakespeare.

He has directed eight productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, including The Taming of the Shrew for which he received a Director of the Year award in 1979. From 1980 to 1988, he was associate director of the Royal National Theatre where he directed about 15 productions. However, 15 months later when it came to court, Whitehouse’s solicitor dramatically abandoned the prosecution, saying: “I cannot continue to try an honourable man.”

During the 1980s, Bogdanov also worked internationally, directing Hamlet at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Romeo and Juliet at the Imperial Theatre, Tokyo, and Measure for Measure at Stratford, Ontario. In 1990 he directed the English Shakespeare Company’s international productions of Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth and The Tempest.

He continued to direct productions around the world in the 1990s, including a revival of the musical Hair at the Old Vic in London in 1993, his own version of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf for both the Royal National Theatre of Denmark in 1994 and the English Shakespeare Company in London in 1997, Peer Gynt for the Residenz Theater in Munich in 1995, Goethe's Faust for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Antony and Cleopatra and As You Like It for the English Theatre Company in 1998, Timon of Athens for the Shakespeare Repertory Theater in Chicago in 1999, and Macbeth for the Residenz Theater in Munich, again in 1999.

From 2002 to 2004, Bogdanov took charge of productions at the Ludlow Castle Open Air Theatre as part of the annual Ludlow Festival.

In 2003, he was involved in setting up the Wales Theatre Company, based in Swansea and Cardiff, taking on the position of artistic director. He has directed productions of both Shakespeare and new works, including Twelfth Night, Cymbeline, The Merchant of Venice and Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. In 2005, he directed the critically acclaimed musical, Amazing Grace, at Swansea Grand Theatre and the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, and the dual Welsh and English production of Hamlet at Cardiff's New Theatre, which was commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales.