Dominic Cooke

Dominic Cooke
Born	1966
Nationality	British
Occupation	Theatre director, playwright

Dominic Cooke CBE (born 1966) is an English theatre, TV and film director and writer.

Born in Wimbledon, south London, Dominic Cooke was brought up seeing a lot of theatre as a teenager from free theatre tickets provided by London Education Authority. His father was a film editor and Cooke learned much about the business of TV and film as a youngster.

Soon after graduating from Warwick University, Cooke's first job as a TV runner led him to start up his own theatre company, Pan Optic, which he ran for two years before becoming an assistant director at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1994 when Adrian Noble was artistic director.

He started his relationship with the Royal Court Theatre under Stephen Daldry in 1995 before becoming an Associate Director at the Royal Court for Ian Rickson in 1999. In 2003 he left the Royal Court and returned to the RSC for Michael Boyd where he directed his acclaimed version of The Crucible starring Iain Glen which won him the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director; the play also won the Olivier for Best Revival.

In 2013 he won the International Theatre Institute Award for Excellence in International Theatre and in the same year was awarded Honorary Doctorate of Letters by his alma mater, Warwick University. Cooke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to drama.

Cooke was Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Royal Court Theatre 2006-2013 during which time he pioneered new writing by actively promoting the Royal Court’s Young Writers’ Programme and new, young writers such as Mike Bartlett (My Child), Polly Stenham (The Face), Penelope Skinner (The Village Bike) and Bola Agbaje (the Olivier Award winning Gone Too Far!).

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