Peter Brook was born in London in 1925. Throughout his career, he distinguished himself in various genres: theatre, opera, cinema and writing. He directed his first play there in 1943. He then went on to direct over 70 productions in London, Paris and New York. His work with the Royal Shakespeare Company includes Love’s Labour’s Lost (1946), Measure for Measure (1950), Titus Andronicus (1955), King Lear (1962), Marat/Sade (1964), US (1966), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970) and Antony and Cleopatra (1978).

In 1971, he founded with Micheline Rozan the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris and in 1974, opened its permanent base in the Bouffes du Nord Theatre. There, he directed Timon of Athens, The Iks, Ubu aux Bouffes, Conference of the Birds, L’Os, The Cherry Orchard, The Mahabharata, Woza Albert!, The Tempest, The Man Who, Qui est là, Happy Days, Je suis un Phénomène, Le Costume, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Far Away, La Mort de Krishna, Ta Main dans la Mienne, The Grand Inquisitor, Tierno Bokar, Sizwe Banzi, Fragments, Warum Warum, Love is my Sin, 11 and 12, Une Flûte Enchantée (opera) and lately The Suit (2012) – many of these performing both in French and English. In opera, he directed La Bohème, Boris Godounov, The Olympians, Salomé and Le Nozze de Figaro at Covent Garden; Faust and Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, La Tragédie de Carmen and Impressions of Pelleas, at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris and Don Giovanni for the Aix en Provence Festival.

Peter Brook’s autobiography, Threads of Time, was published in 1998 and joins other titles including The Empty Space (1968) – translated into over 15 languages, The Shifting Point (1987), There are no Secrets (1993), Evoking (and Forgetting) Shakespeare (1999) and With Grotowski (2009). His films include Moderato Cantabile (1959), Lord of the Flies (1963), Marat/Sade (1967), King Lear (1969), Meetings with Remarkable Men (1976), The Mahabharata (1989) and The Tragedy of Hamlet (2002, TV).