Winner 1999
Winner:
Mark Rosenblatt
Production:
The Dybbuk by S. Anski
Mark Rosenblatt is Artistic Director of Dumbfounded Theatre, currently an Associate Company at the Young Vic. Work includes Arthur Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi (Dumbfounded & Oxford Stage Company/Arcola Theatre), C.P. Taylor’s Bread and Butter (Dumbfounded/Oxford Stage Company/Southwark Playhouse/Tricycle Theatre), The Taming of the Shrew (Thelma Holt Ltd & Theatre Royal, Plymouth and tour), The Tempest (National Theatre Tour and Cottesloe), Somerset Maugham’s The Circle (Oxford Stage Company/Tour/Yvonne Arnaud) and A Passionate Woman (Royal Theatre Northampton).
I have no doubt that the JMK Award is the best one-off young directors’ bursary around. It creates an incentive for a young creative team to come up with really concrete ideas for a show in an existing space. It encourages a freedom of choice of play that a young jobbing director is unlikely to experience again for a number of years. And, most importantly, it does not involve assistant directing. You are given a show, a real challenge with the backing of a kick-start budget (a terribly important psychological head-start over any other fringe experience). Other bursary schemes offer months of assistant directing and, whilst this is often invaluable, there’s nothing like directing a show in a theatre if you want to be a theatre director - Mark Rosenblatt
Rosenblatt brings an assured and intelligent touch to his reading of The Dybbuk, endowing the play with an intensity that resists the temptation of spilling over into melodrama. A truly remarkable evening of theatre - The Independent
A dark, languid production - The Evening Standard
An impressively assured debut on the professional stage – The Jewish Chronicle
Spine-tingling moments - Time Out
