Robert Sian
Robert is originally from Rosyth in Scotland. His first job after graduating from university, with degrees in History and Theatre Studies, was to play Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream on a three month tour of the United States with the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company. Thereafter he directed sporadically while working more regularly as a freelance actor. He co-founded the fringe theatre company Confederacy of Fools, which specialised in new writing.
He won the B.P. British Young Director of the Year Award with his production of Vanity by Richard Crane based on the verse novel Eugene Onegin by Pushkin.
He was an Associate Director with Hull Truck Theatre Company and in Britain has also worked for The Bush Theatre, Chester Gateway and the Riverside Theatre, Northern Ireland. He has won both a solo performance award and a Fringe First Award (for new writing) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His plays have been performed in Britain, America, Germany, Belgium Holland and Norway, and televised in Britain and Germany.
In recent years he has spent most of his time on the European mainland especially in Antwerp, Belgium, working initially with the Fakkeltheater as a freelance until becoming the artistic leader of Torka – T Theatre Company, directing productions in Dutch, including Dr. Faustus, Macbeth, Karamazov adapted from Dostoyevsky, and Onegin. He is currently artistic director of Tableau nr. 1, a theatre company based in Antwerp, which has produced two of Robert’s own plays R.A.M. and Reeling as well as works by other authors. His freelance work includes Flemish premières of Enda Walsh’s Bedbound, The Shape of Things by Neil Labute and Blackbird by David Harrower.
Recently for Tableau he directed The Small things by Enda Walsh, Parlour Song by Jez Butterworth, Marathon FIVE-O written by himself and Tony Dunham, April In Paris by John Godber, Not a game for boys by Simon Block, A Steady Rain by Keith Huff, Me and Robin Hood by Shôn Dale Jones and A Behanding In Spokane by Martin McDonagh. Robert also works with students having directed productions at the Royal Conservatorium Brussels and at the Drama Centre London
Past productions
- Director, Me and Robin Hood, Tableau nr.1 Antwerp
- Director, A Steady Rain by Keith Huff, Tableau nr.1 Antwerp
- Director, Parlour Song, Tableau nr.1 Antwerp
- Director, Bedbound by Enda Walsh, Raamteater Antwerp
- Director, The Brothers Karamazov, Torka-T Antwerp
- Director, An Evening with Gary Lineker, Chester Gateway Theatre Company
- Director, Bouncers, Gateway Theatre Trust
- Director, Cain & Able(Chester Mysteries)
- Director, Teechers, Gateway Theatre Trust
- Director, Northern Lights, Hull Truck Theatre Accompany
- Directed by, A Hard Day’s Night, Hull Truck Theatre Company
- Director, Up ‘n’ Under, Hull Truck Theatre Accompany
- Director, Bouncers, Hull Truck Theatre Accompany
- Director, Female Parts, Hull Truck Theatre Company
