Biography
Andrei Serban studied directing at the Theatre Institute in Bucharest, Romania. In 1969 he received a Ford Foundation Grant which took him to La MaMa Experimental Theatre Center in New York City where he directed his Fragments of a Greek Trilogy, which won several Obie Awards and was performed at more than 20 international festivals. At New York’s Lincoln Center Vivian Beaumont Theatre he directed Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, the latter of which won a Tony Award for Best Revival.
He has directed at the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Guthrie Theatre, New York City’s Circle in the Square Theatre, the American Repertory Theatre, in the United States, at the Royal National Theatre in London, Comédie Française in Paris, the Shiki Theatre Company in Tokyo, among others. He has worked with Peter Brook at Brook’s International Theatre Institute in both Paris and Iran. He acted as general director of the Romanian National Theatre between 1990 and 1993, and has staged opera productions all over the world, from the San Francisco Opera to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Teatro La Fenice, Wiener Staatsoper, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, etc. Several of the operas he directed in Europe have been released on DVD.
His most recent opera and theatre productions include Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and Gounod’s Faust at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Massenet’s Werther and Manon at the Vienna Opera, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Chicago Opera, as well as Cleansed by Sarah Kane, The Seagull by Chekhov, Don Juan in Soho by Patrick Marber and Rock’n’Roll by Tom Stoppard at the National Theatres of Cluj and Sibiu, Uncle Vanya at the Hungarian Theatre in Cluj, King Lear at Bulandra Theatre in Bucharest.
His autobiography, published in Romania in 2006, reached its third reprint in 2007. A comprehensive photographic retrospective of his entire career, “My Journeys – Theatre/Opera”, was published in 2008. Since 1992 he has been Professor of Theatre Arts and Director of the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in New York City. His 2009 projects include Turandot at the Washington National Opera and Uncle Vanya at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
Update: September 2008