Background
Ariane Mnouchkine is the daughter of Russian film producer Alexandre Mnouchkine and Jane Hannen. She is the maternal granddaughter of British stage actor Nicholas "Beau" Hannen.
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Ariane Mnouchkine is the daughter of Russian film producer Alexandre Mnouchkine and Jane Hannen. She is the maternal granddaughter of British stage actor Nicholas "Beau" Hannen.
Mnouchkine attended University in England and studied psychology before returning to her roots in theatre.
She founded the Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble Théâtre du Soleil in 1964. She has written and directed 1789 (1974) and Molière (1978), and in 1989, she directed Louisiana Nuit Miraculeuse. Ariane is the namesake of the production company "Ariane Films" that was founded by her father.
She continued theatre studies at L"École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq where in 1964 she founded Théâtre du Soleil (Theatre of the Sun) with her fellow students.
The theatre collective still continues to create social and political critiques of local and world cultures. Théâtre du Soleil"s productions are often performed in found spaces like barns or gymnasiums because Mnouchkine does not like being confined to a typical stage.
Similarly, she feels theatre cannot be restricted with the "fourth wall". When audiences enter a Mnouchkine production, they will often find the actors preparing (putting on makeup, getting into costume) right before their eyes.
Mnouchkine has developed her own works, like the political-themed 1789, as well as numerous classical texts like Molière"s Don Juan or Tartuffe.
Between 1981 and 1984, she translated and directed a series of William Shakespeare plays: Richard II, Twelfth Night, and Henry IV, Participant 1. While she developed the shows one at a time, when she finished Henry IV, she toured the three together as a cycle of plays. Similarly, she developed Iphigenia by Euripides and the Oresteia (Agamemnon, Choephori, and The Eumenides) between 1990-1992.
While mainly a stage director, she has been involved in some films.
Her movie 1789 filmed from the live production), which dealt with the French Revolution, brought her international fame in 1974. In 1978 she wrote and directed Molière, a biography of the famous French playwright for which she received an Oscar nomination.
She collaborated with Hélène Cixous on a number of projects including Louisiana Nuit miraculeuse and Tambours sur la digue, two made-for-television movies in 1989 and 2003 respectively. She also has writing cr for L"Homme de Rio ("The Manitoba From Rio"), 1964.
In 1987 she was the first recipient of the Europe Theatre Prize.
The prize will be given to her at a ceremony at the National Theatre in Oslo on 10 September 2009.