Jackson Adrian
Artistic Director of Cardboard Citizens, UK
Adrian Jackson is the Founder, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Cardboard Citizens, a theatre company working particularly with homeless people, which he founded in 1991. Since then he has directed over 30 productions for the Company, devising and writing many of them. As well as directing and writing many Forum Theatre pieces, Adrian has also directed all the company's larger-scale site-specific productions, including Pericles and Timon of Athens, co-produced with the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Beggar’s Opera (with ENO), The Lower Depths (with London Bubble) and the Evening Standard award-winning Mincemeat (also co-writer). He wrote and directed A Few Man Fridays in 2012 about the expulsion of the Chagos islanders which played to critical acclaim at Riverside Studios. In 2015 he directed Sarah Woods’ Benefitandin 2016 an updated version of Cathy Come Home, Cathy, by Ali Taylor, both of which toured nationally. In 2017 he commissioned and co-directed a season of new plays around the history of housing, Home Truths, with new work from 9 playwrights- Stef Smith, EV Crowe, Heathcote Williams, David Watson, Nessah Muthy, Chris O’Connell, Sonali Battacharya, Lin Coghlan and Anders Lustgarten. Adrian is one of the world’s leading experts on Theatre of the Oppressed. He was Augusto Boal's translator on five books Games for Actors and Non-Actors, The Rainbow of Desires, The Legislative Theatre, Hamlet and the Baker's Son (Boal's autobiography) and The Aesthetics of the Oppressed. He led workshops with Boal on many occasions, and they collaborated on The Art of Legislation, an Artangel-sponsored piece of Legislative Theatre at County Hall in London. He has taught this work in many contexts, throughout Britain and Ireland, and many places throughout the world, including master classes across Europe, Asia, South America, Australia and Africa. He was awarded an MBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours. This year (2018), he will revive Cathy in March for Soho Theatre and touring, and then co-directing a film for Artangel.