Laurie Sansom
About Laurie Sansom
Laurie took up his new role as Artistic Director of Northern Broadsides in June 2019 for whom he has directed Christmas Broadsides and J.M. Barrie’s Quality Street. Between 2012 and 2016 Laurie was Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland for whom he directed The James Plays by Rona Munro. They premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2014, where he won a Herald Angel, before transferring to the National Theatre in London, where they won the Evening Standard and Writers’ Guild Awards for Best Play. They were then seen internationally in Adelaide, Auckland and Toronto.
Also for National Theatre of Scotland he directed his own adaptation of Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat, and The 306:Dawn, a new site-specific piece of music theatre telling the stories of the 306 British soldiers executed for cowardice in the First World War.
Previously he was Artistic Director of Royal & Derngate, Northampton where he directed the European premiers of Tennessee Williams’ Spring Storm and Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon, both transferring to the National Theatre, London, and winning him the 2010 TMA Award for Best Director, and a nomination for Best Director at the Evening Standard Awards. He also directed new versions of The Bacchae, Blood Wedding and Hedda Gabler as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Frankenstein (with Frantic Assembly), The Duchess of Malfi, Follies and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
He has directed for theatres around the UK including the Traverse, Birmingham Rep, Salisbury Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith, New Vic, Stoke, West Yorkshire Playhouse and the National Theatre, London, where he directed the world première of The Holy Rosenbergs.
At the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, where he was the Associate Director to Alan Ayckbourn, he directed over twenty new plays including Villette (with Frantic Assembly) and a micro-musical season comprising three new musicals. His Watford Palace production of Dangerous Corner was re-mounted at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and transferred to the Garrick Theatre, West End in 2002.