Born in Sydney, Armfield was the second of three boys. The son of a factory worker at the nearby Arnott's biscuit factory he was brought up in the suburb of Concord adjacent to Exile Bay. He was educated at the (then) selective publicly funded Homebush Boys High School and the University of Sydney graduating in 1977 and became Co-Artistic Director of the Nimrod Theatre Company in 1979. He joined South Australia’s Lighthouse Theatre before returning to Sydney in 1985, where he was involved in the purchase of Belvoir St Theatre and the formation of Company B, becoming its first Artistic Director in 1994.

In April 2008 he was selected as a participant in the Towards a creative Australia strand of the Australia 2020 Summit.

Company B Work

• Signal Driver
• State of Shock
• Aftershocks
• Master Builder
• The Diary of a Madman
• Diving for Pearls
• The Tempest
• Ghosts
• Hate
• No Sugar
• Hamlet
• The Blind Giant is Dancing

• The Alchemist
• WASP
• The Seagull
• The Governor’s Family
• As You Like It
• The Judas Kiss
• The Small Poppies
• Suddenly Last Summer
• The Marriage of Figaro
• Emma’s Nose
• Aliwa
• My Zinc Bed

• Waiting For Godot
• The Underpants
• The Lieutenant of Inishmore
• Gulpilil
• The Spook
• The Fever
• Cloudstreet
• Picasso at the Lapin Agile
• Dead Heart
• A Cheery Soul
• Night on Bald Mountain
• Stuff Happens
• Keating!

Companies worked with

• Nimrod Theatre Company
• State Theatre Company of South Australia
• Queensland Theatre Company
• Sydney Theatre Company
• Seymour Group
• Melbourne Theatre Company
• Opera Australia
• Welsh National Opera
• Canadian Opera Company
• Zurich Opera
• English National Opera
• Royal Opera Covent Garden
• Lyric Opera of Chicago

Film

• 1990 The Castanet Club
• 1987 Twelfth Night
• 2006 Candy starring Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rush

Awards and Honours

Australian

• Officer of the Order of Australia for ...service to the arts, nationally and internationally, as a director of theatre, opera and film, and as a promoter of innovative Australian productions including Australian Indigenous drama. (January 2007)
• Honorary Doctor of Literature at the University of Sydney (April 2006)
• Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Director and Best Production
• 1989, Major Award for Significant Contribution to Sydney Theatre
• several Green Room Awards
• AFI Award for Best Director (Mini-series Eden’s Lost)
• several Helpmann Awards
• Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Performing Arts in Australia

International

• Dublin Festival, Best Production (Cloudstreet)
• Dora Mavor Moore Awards, Canada, Best Director and Best Musical for Billy Budd
• Barclays Best Opera Production Award (Billy Budd)
• Jesse Kempf

External links

References