Simon Stone

Simon Stone (born 19 August 1984 in Basel, Switzerland) is an Australian film and theatre director, writer and actor whose body of work bridges classic texts and contemporary storytelling. Growing up between Cambridge and Melbourne after his Australian parents returned home, Stone absorbed a multicultural sensibility that later informed his trans‑national productions. The early loss of his father, a biochemist, when Stone was twelve left an indelible mark, and he often cites this trauma as a catalyst for his intense, emotionally raw directing style. In 2007 he founded the independent company The Hayloft Project, launching with an adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening that earned critical praise for its lean, furious energy and a reputation for re‑imagining canonical works through improvisational “over‑writing”. This approach continued with ambitious stagings of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, Brecht’s Baal and Strindberg‑inspired Hotel Strindberg, productions that traveled from Belvoir to the Holland Festival and earned awards such as the Nestroy Theatre Prize for John Gabriel Borkman. As a house director at Theater Basel from 2015, Stone delivered landmark interpretations of Angels in America, Three Sisters and the opera Die tote Stadt, while collaborations with Internationaal Theater Amsterdam saw him rework Euripides’ Medea and create the original play Ibsen House. His 2016 adaptation of García Lorca’s Yerma at the Young Vic garnered a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival and later toured to New York, exemplifying his skill at transposing classic dramas into modern, cinematic tableaux. Beyond the stage, Stone transitioned to film with The Daughter (2015), winning an AACTA for Best Adapted Screenplay, and directed the well‑received historical drama The Dig (2021). Recent projects include directing Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera (2022) and the opera Mefistofele at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (2023), confirming his status as a versatile artist who continuously reshapes narrative form across mediums.