Josette Bushell-Mingo | |
---|---|
Born | Lewisham, London, England | 16 February 1964
Nationality | British |
Occupation(s) | Stage actress, theatre director |
Years active | 1989–present |
Spouse | Stefan Karsberg |
Children | 2 |
Awards | OBE, H. M. The King's Medal |
Website | josettebushellmingo |
Josette Bushell-Mingo OBE (born 16 February 1964) is a Sweden-based English theatre actress and director of African descent, who was born in London and has been living and working in Sweden for many years. [1] In February 2021, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama announced she had been appointed as the incoming Principal of the School. [2] [3] She is the first person of African descent, the first woman since 1942, and the third woman overall to hold this role. [3] Previously, she served as artistic director for the National Touring Swedish Deaf Theatre ensemble TystTeater for 13 years before accepting a position as the Head of the theatre department at the Stockholm University of the Arts in 2019. [2]
Josette Bushell-Mingo was born in 1964 in the Lewisham area of London to Guyanese parents – her father was a bus driver, her mother a nurse – and grew up in Plaistow. [4] She has three sisters. [5] At 17, she auditioned for and was admitted to Barking College, where she did her A levels in Drama, Theatre Design, and Performing Arts. [6] [7] [5] During her last two weeks at Barking, she received two offers: one from Breton University to pursue a BA in theatre and the other from Kaboodle Theatre Company. [5] [8] She chose Kaboodle because "a black girl [was] in it as well". [8] After Kaboodle, she acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. [5]
In 1999, she appeared as Solveig in the Royal Exchange Manchester production of Peer Gynt and she returned in 2005 to play Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra . [8] [9] [10] [11] Both productions were directed by Braham Murray. [7] She was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 1999 for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Rafiki in the London production of The Lion King . [6] [9] She has also worked with Doppleganger Theatre Company, Kiss Theatre Company (Holland), Black Mime, Half Moon Young People's Theatre, Lumiere & Son Theatre Company, and Rainmaker Theatre for the Deaf. [12]
In 2001, she founded the Push Arts Festival with the Young Vic Theatre, an event that aims both to empower Black creators as well as to normalize their presence and leadership within major institutions within the theatre community and beyond. [4] [9] [11] [5] She also served as its artistic director. [2] It was because of her efforts with Push that she was awarded an OBE in 2006. [2] [13] In 2010, she was one of several Afro-Swede actors to found TRYCK, a community for Black actors in Sweden. [5] [14]
In 2016, she wrote and performed Nina - A Story About Me and Nina Simone, a "deeply personal and often searing show inspired by the singer and activist Nina Simone, at the Unity Theatre. [15] The show ran at the Young Vic Theatre in July 2017 before moving to the Traverse Theatre in August. [16]
From 2005-2018, she was the Artistic Director for the National Touring Swedish Deaf Theatre ensemble TystTeater. [13] [17] The company's 2008 signed production of The Odyssey received huge critical acclaim in Scandinavia. [13] [18] [19]
After leaving the National Touring Swedish Deaf Theatre, she became the Head of Acting at the Stockholm University of the Arts. [3] She is the first woman to hold this position. [20]
Bushell-Mingo has served as the Chairwoman for CinemAfrica and as a board member for the Swedish Film Institute, Women in Film and Television Sweden, and the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. [3] [21] She has also given lectures and taught at a number of theatre schools such as London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Coventry University, London College of Fashion, and Malmö Theatre Academy. [2]
Though she primarily works in theatre, Bushell-Mingo has also appeared in the Swedish show Nudlar och 08:or as Martha in 1997 and in a 2015 episode of Bröllop, begravning och dop as Xamina. [22] She has also starred in the films Girls & Boys (dir. Ninja Thyberg, 2015); Flickan, mamman och demonerna (dir. Suzanne Osten, 2016). [22] She also headlined as Kandia in Dani Kouyaté's award-winning film While We Live. [23] [22]
Bushell-Mingo has lived in Sweden for nearly 20 years. [7] She is married to Swedish producer Stefan Karsberg; they have two sons, Ruben and Joshua. [4] [7] She is fluent in Swedish sign language. [5]
Year | Award Body | Award | Work | Notes | Citation |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1992 | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | Player of the Year | Performance in Two Gentlemen of Verona , The Virtuoso , and The Thebans (dir. David Thacker) | [7] [24] | |
1993 | Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards | Best Actress | Performance in From the Mississippi Delta (dir. Annie Castledine) | Award shared with Joy Richardson and Pauline Black | [7] [24] |
1999 | Society of London Theatre | Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical | Performance in The Lion King (dir. Julie Taymor) | Nominated | [7] [24] [1] |
2004 | Women of the Year Lunch | Craymer Award for Enterprise | Excellence in theatre | [20] [25] [21] | |
2005 | Arts Council England | deciBel Visual Arts Award | Excellence in theatre | [11] [26] | |
2006 | United Kingdom | Officer of the Order of the British Empire | Services to the theatre | [2] [13] [27] | |
2012 | Swedish Language Council | Minority Language Award | Promotion of Swedish sign language | [28] | |
2012 | Stockholm City Cultural Prize | Performing arts | Honorary award | [1] [28] | |
2013 | Swedish National Association of the Deaf | Minority Language Award | Promotion of Swedish sign language | [28] | |
2017 | Africa Movie Academy Awards | Best Actress in a Leading Role | Performance in While We Live | Nominated | [1] [28] [23] |
2018 | Gannevik Foundation/The Swedish Arts Grants Committee | Artist scholarship | Excellence in theatre | [1] [28] [29] | |
2018 | Performing Arts Inspiration Artist | Excellence in theatre | [21] | ||
2018 | Women of the World Festival | Outstanding Achievement Award | For writing and performing in Nina - A Story About Me and Nina Simone | Nominee | [30] [31] |
2019 | Expressens Kulturpris | Theatre Award | Excellence in theatre | [1] [32] | |
2021 | Sweden | H. M. The King's Medal in gold of the 8th size worn on the chest suspended by the Order of the Seraphim ribbon | Significant contributions in Swedish performing arts | [33] |
Marlee Matlin is an American actress, author, and activist. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Award, and four Primetime Emmy Awards.
Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, arranger and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop.
Nina Wadia is an English actress and comedian. She is known for portraying Zainab Masood in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, Aunty Noor in Citizen Khan, Mrs Hussein in the BBC comedy Still Open All Hours and for starring in the BBC Two sketch show Goodness Gracious Me.
Josette Patricia Simon is a British actor. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and played the part of Dayna Mellanby in the third and fourth series of the television sci-fi series Blake's 7 from 1980 to 1981. On stage, she has appeared in Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) productions from 1982, playing Ariel in The Tempest, to 2018 when she was Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. The first black woman in an RSC play when she featured in 1982, Simon has been at the forefront of colour-blind casting, playing roles traditionally taken by white actors, including Maggie, a character that is thought to be based on Marilyn Monroe, in Arthur Miller's After the Fall at the National Theatre in 1990.
Helen Elizabeth McCrory was an English actress. After studying at the Drama Centre London, she made her stage debut in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1990. Other stage roles include playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe, Olivia in Twelfth Night, Rosalind in As You Like It in the West End, and Medea in the eponymous play in the Royal National Theatre.
The Penelopiad is a novella by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was published in 2005 as part of the first set of books in the Canongate Myth Series where contemporary authors rewrite ancient myths. In The Penelopiad, Penelope reminisces on the events of the Odyssey, life in Hades, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, and her relationships with her parents. A Greek chorus of the twelve maids, who Odysseus believed were disloyal and whom Telemachus hanged, interrupt Penelope's narrative to express their view on events. The maids' interludes use a new genre each time, including a jump-rope rhyme, a lament, an idyll, a ballad, a lecture, a court trial and several types of songs.
"Feeling Good" is a song written by English composers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. It was first performed on stage in 1964 by Cy Grant on the UK tour.
Anamaria Marinca is a Romanian actress. She made her screen debut with the Channel 4 film Sex Traffic, for which she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress. Marinca is also known for her performance in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, earning several awards for her performance, and was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actress, London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress. In 2008, at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival, she was presented the Shooting Stars Award by the European Film Promotion.
Lolita Chakrabarti is a British actress and writer.
Kayode Maria Söderberg Shekoni is a Swedish-Nigerian singer and actress.
City Lit is an adult education college in Holborn, central London, founded by the London County Council in 1919, which has charitable status. It offers part-time courses across four schools and five "centres of expertise", covering humanities and sciences, languages, performing arts, visual arts, deaf education, family learning, community outreach, learning disabilities education, speech therapy and universal skills.
Nina Arianda Matijcio is an American actress. She won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Vanda Jordan in Venus in Fur, and she was nominated for the 2011 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for portraying Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. She stars in Amazon Studios legal series Goliath and starred in the biographical film Stan & Ollie (2018) as Stan Laurel's wife Ida.
African immigrants to Sweden include naturalized citizens and residents of Sweden who were born in Africa. As of 2020, there are 236,975 people in Sweden who were born in Africa. By 2022, this number rose to 250,881 residents of Sweden who were born in Africa, or approximately 3% of the total population.
Tribes is a play by English playwright Nina Raine that had its world premiere in 2010 at London's Royal Court Theatre and its North American premiere Off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre in 2012. The play won the 2012 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.
Carlota Suzanne Osten is a Swedish film director stage director and screenwriter. She won the award for Best Director at the 22nd Guldbagge Awards for the film The Mozart Brothers.
Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson, known professionally as Michaela Coel, is a British actress, filmmaker and poet. She is best known for creating and starring in the E4 sitcom Chewing Gum (2015–2017), for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance; and the BBC One/HBO comedy-drama series I May Destroy You (2020) for which she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress in 2021. For her work on I May Destroy You, Coel was the first black woman to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards.
Simone Ashwini Pillai, known professionally as Simone Ashley, is a British actress. She is known for her roles in the Netflix period drama Bridgerton (2022–present) and comedy-drama Sex Education (2019–2023).
While We Live is a 2016 Swedish comedy-drama film written and directed by Burkinabé filmmaker Dani Kouyaté and co-produced by Maria Larsson Guerpillon and Julien Siri. This is his first Swedish film. The film stars Josette Bushell-Mingo, Adam Kanyama and Richard Sseruwagi in lead roles, whereas Marika Lindström, Sten Ljunggren and Philip Lithner made supportive roles. The film was shot at Malmö, Sweden.
Deaf theatre's, is a alternative form of theater which is a collaboration of deaf actors or actresses. Using open space, the performers use gesture, dance, and sign language to perform to a audience. Production teams create theatre in their respective signed languages and many companies choose to have both hearing performers and deaf performers for a dual-language experience while some offer solely signed performances.