Clare Lizzimore

Theatre Directing - Winner 2009

Clare grew up in a small town in Hertfordshire. She studied for a BA in Film and Drama then followed by a MA at Central. In order to keep active as a director while working full time at the BBC she worked with Sphinx Theatre using actors to test writer’s ideas. It was here that Lizzimore became fascinated by a non-performative, almost anti-presented, style of acting. In 2005 she read Duncan Macmillan’s The Most Humane Way to Kill a Lobster. Determined to direct it she left the security of the BBC, found funding and a theatre and staged the production at Theatre 503. It was well received particularly for its inventive staging which involved seven different locations and water on stage. During a stint as resident Director at Glasgow’s Citizen’s Theatre Clare won the Robert David Macdonald fund for bold European work and decided to stage Kroetz’s Tom Fool. What she saw in his drama and what was becoming so inextricable with her own work was the drama of small joys and everyday dilemmas - how the mundane became profound.
Her most recent productions include On the Rocks by Amy Rosenthal at the Hampstead Theatre, The Mother by Mark Ravenhill which was co-directed with Max Stafford Clark and Jonah and Otto by Robert Holman for Manchester Royal Exchange Studio. As a review of On the Rocks stated, ‘Clare Lizzimore’s direction is grease to the wheels, adding touches and nuances here and there that emphasise the humour or tragedy of the moment. She also draws some pitch-perfect performances from her actors.’