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Victoria Gartner - Storyteller

Victoria Gartner is an award-nominated writer,

director and facilitator.

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Over the last ten years, Victoria has written and directed work produced in the UK, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.


She is the Artistic Director of Will & Co, which she founded in 2015. Her play Will or Eight Lost Years of William Shakespeare’s Life has toured for three years in both French and English, and was dubbed by The Stage to be "fascinating work."

She imagined Bard in the Yard in the first Covid-induced lockdown in May 2020: two solo plays about Shakespeare experiencing writer’s block during a plague pandemic. They have been performed in private gardens, schools, care homes and festivals by 35 actors all over the  UK to great public and critical acclaim (The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent), with Dame Helen Mirren as a Godmother.

Victoria has been teaching Shakespeare for many years, including at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. She is passionate about giving everyone access to Shakespeare in a fresh and vibrant way, using movement work to unlock verse. She regularly teaches Acting and Directing Shakespeare at LAMDA and East15, and directs musicals for British Youth Music Theatre. She has an MA in English literature with a specialisation in Shakespearean studies as well as a degree in Dramaturgy and Directing.

 

She was recently Associate Director for Lucy Bailey's production of And Then There Were None (Fiery Angel, Royo, Northampton), which toured the UK as well as China (2023-2024). She is currently Assistant Director on Murder on the Orient Express, which is touring the UK.

Interview for Creative Heads - a film by Lenz Films, 2021

Produced by the Embassy of Switzerland in the UK

Press

2021

London Live TV

Interview on "Bard in the Yard"

BBC Radio Bristol

Interview by Steve Yardley

Awards, Bursaries and Grants

2020

Arvon Creative Writing Grant, UK

2018

Best Director Nomination

OFF WEST END Awards, London

for Will, or Eight Lost Years of William Shakespeare's Life

Swiss Embassy in the UK - Swiss Cultural Fund Grant

for Will, or Eight Lost Years of William Shakespeare's Life

National Grant for Translation

SSA (Swiss Author's Society) for Verona

2017

National Grant for Playwriting

SSA (Swiss Author's Society) - KTV/ATP, Switzerland

Bursary from the  Engelberts Foundation, Switzerland

for Will, or Eight Lost Years of William Shakespeare's Life

2016

Short Play Winner

Six Shorts Plays in Search of an Author, Tulalu?! and Theatre 2.21, Lausanne, Switzerland

2012

Best Director Award and Audience Favourite Award

FriScènes Theatre Festival, Fribourg, Switzerland

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