Bill Buckhurst
BILL BUCKHURST is an award-winning theatre and film director based in the UK. His recent production of Dave Malloy’s Ghost Quartet at the Boulevard Theatre received the 2020 Off West End Award for Best Director of a Musical. His production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (Tooting Arts Club at Harrington’s Pie & Mash Shop) transferred to the West End and Barrow Street Theatre, NYC, where it won the 2017 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival, the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Musical Revival, Theatre Fan’s Choice Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical and was nominated for four 2017 Drama Desk Awards including Outstanding Director of a Musical and Outstanding Revival of a Musical. In 2021 he directs Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Saunders in Sister Act The Musical, at London’s Hammersmith Apollo (Jamie Wilson Productions). Bill’s debut feature film, Pond Life (Open Palm Films), premiered at the 2018 Leeds International Film Festival and was released in the UK in April 2019. It was long listed for 6 British Independent Film Awards including Douglas Hickox Award for Debut Director and Best British Independent Film. Recent theatre directing includes: Assassins (Watermill/Nottingham Playhouse); Much Ado About Nothing (Storyhouse); Sweet Charity (Nottingham Playhouse); The Selfish Giant (West End/Northampton); Babette’s Feast (Print Room); Sleeping Beauty (Watermill); Omeros (Shakespeare’s Globe); Barbarians (Tooting Arts Club at Central St Martins); King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe & US Tour); Hamlet (GlobetoGlobe World Tour). Short films: Richard II; Comedy of Errors; King Lear (as part of The Complete Walk, Shakespeare’s Globe). Bill is an Education Consultant at Shakespeare’s Globe where his productions for Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank form the basis of the Globe Education Shorter Shakespeare series, published by Hodder & Stoughton. Bill trained as an actor and performed at the RSC, the West End, Royal Court, Shakespeare’s Globe and on film and TV. He started his directing career assisting Dominic Cooke and Anthony Neilson at the Royal Court.