THE TEMPEST

ROBERT WILSON

Biography

short version

“[Robert Wilson is] a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer

in the uses of time and space on stage.” —The New York Times

Born in Waco, Texas, Wilson is among the world’s foremost theater and visual artists.

His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic

media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music and text. His images

are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have

earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide.

After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute,

Wilson founded the New York-based performance collective “The Byrd Hoffman

School of Byrds” in the mid-1960s, and developed his first signature works,

including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974-1975).

With Philip Glass he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976).

Wilson’s artistic collaborators include many writers and musicians such as

Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou

Reed, Jessye Norman and Anna Calvi. He has also left his imprint on masterworks

such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Brecht/Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Debussy’s

Pelléas et Melisande, Goethe’s Faust, Homer’s Odyssey, Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables,

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s La Traviata and several of Shakespeare’s

works.

Wilson's drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented around

the world in hundreds of solo and group showings, and his works are held in private

collections and museums throughout the world.

Wilson has been honored with numerous awards for excellence, including a

Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of the Venice

Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts

and Letters, as well as the German Academy of the Arts, and holds 8 Honorary Doctorate

degrees. He is a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and Officer of

the Legion of Honor in France, bearer of the German Officer’s Cross of the Order of

Merit, and laureate of the 2023 Praemium Imperiale.

Wilson is the founder and Artistic Director of The Watermill Center, a laboratory

for the Arts in Water Mill, New York.

Ivan Vazov" National Theatre is the earliest and the most authoritative of Bulgarian stages, having a rich history, firmly anchored in its traditions, with a commanding and protean presence in the modernity of the present. The theatre offers a broad repertoire of both contemporary and classical plays appealing to the widest possible range of audiences. The theatre building was designed by the famous

Viennese architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann

Helmer, who were also the designers of the theatre

buildings in Vienna, Odessa, Zagreb, Prague and in

other European cities - all of which have now become

famous landmarks.

The theatre has a techinically well-equipped Main

Stage and Auditorium of 780 seats, a Chamber Stage

with 135 seats and the “Apostol Karamitev” Stage

More than 600 performances and about 10 premieres

are performed in a single theatre season.