Rebecca Frecknall

Rebecca is a multi-Olivier Award-winning director, who has directed in the UK and internationally. She is Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre.

Rebecca is the director of the award-winning productions of ‘Cabaret’ at the KitKat Club in the West End and Broadway (Winner of seven Olivier Awards, including Best Director and Best Musical Revival 2022, Winner of the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Director 2022), and the critically acclaimed productions of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘Summer and Smoke’, both of which won Olivier Awards for Best Revival, and both of which were nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Director. Both shows opened at the Almeida before transferring to the West End. Rebecca’s production of ‘Sanctuary City’ at the New York Theatre Workshop won the 2022 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play.

Rebecca made The Stage's 100 most influential figures working in theatre 2024 as an independent creative, as well as having been ranked 13th on the list in 2023.

Praise for Romeo and Juliet

★★★★★ 'For seldom was a staging better yet than this...a masterclass in how to tell Shakespeare...unmissable' The Telegraph

★★★★★ 'Five stars simply isn't enough for the urgent vibrant glory of this...all-conquering director Rebecca Frecknall...continues her incredible winning streak of hits' The I

★★★★ 'An originality and intensity that sweeps all before it' Whats On Stage

★★★★ 'The director with a consummate gift for turning old into new' The Guardian

★★★★'Makes us see this familiar story with fresh eyes' Evening Standard

★★★★'Urgent and freshly shocking...a visceral reimagining' The Stage

Praise for A Streetcar Named Desire:

★★★★★ 'A Streetcar Named Desire for a new generation...unmistakably feminist and feminine' Broadway World

★★★★★ "Outstanding...manages to clear away the clag of the story while introducing a new sense of mystery. Not an ounce of “great theatre” stiffness here: this is raw, poetic, painful and plausible. Funny, too’ The Times

★★★★ 'This wrenchingly sad, stark staging of Tennessee Williams’ play is the stuff theatrical myths are made of, and the first great London show of 2023’ Evening Standard

★★★★ ‘One of the year's hottest, most hyped shows"’ Guardian

★★★★ 'Heart stopping' The Telegraph

★★★★ "’Masterful...Frecknall is a director with thrilling insights into the works we think we know...the work of one of the most exciting directors around"’ The Independent

★★★★ 'Ferociously gripping, aesthetically astute, complex and compassionate' The Stage

Praise for Cabaret:

★★★★★ "A stunning, breathlessly exciting theatrical happening... Frecknall proves herself one of our most exciting directors, and she draws superb performances from all involved" - Evening Standard

★★★★★ "... Astonishing... [Buckley's rendition of the title song is] perhaps the best musical-theatre performance I have ever seen live" - Independent

★★★★★ "This is musical theatre at its absolute finest. A total knockout" - Broadway World

★★★★★ "An outstanding piece of theatre... Sensational" - Financial Times

★★★★★ "This is it. This is the one... 2021's kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph" - Telegraph

Praise for Sanctuary City:

"Frecknall's staging is just as breakneck, as if it had shed its clothing to run faster through the woods." The New York Times

"...brought to life in Rebecca Frecknall's thrillingly minimal production" The New York Times

"...British Theater wunderkind Rebecca Frecknall, whose crystalline work is present in every single detail, yet simultaneously invisible." Theatermania

"Frecknall's balletic directing" Broadway World

Praise for Three Sisters:

"Frecknall doesn't so much direct Chekhov's play as conduct it. The result sits in that sweet spot: a Chekhov for our times." Variety

"Rebecca Frecknall’s revelatory production..." The New York Times

"In its drifting strangeness, it reminds us why Chekhov is - ironically - so timeless and why he might speak afresh to today's millenials." ★★★★ The Financial Times

"A slow-burning yet engrossing study of a young family's collapsing dreams." ★★★★ What's on Stage

Praise for Summer and Smoke:

★★★★★ Rebecca Frecknall's shiveringly beautiful production

The Sunday Times

★★★★★ Rebecca Frecknall's whole production seems to tremble like a sustained, held high note: fragile, uncertain, almost unbearably tense

The Independent

★★★★★ It's superb stuff: sensual, shimmering and sad

The Financial Times

★★★★★ There is magic in the sultry magnolia-scented air at the Almeida with this one

The Times

★★★★★ So captivating in its every second

The Stage

★★★★ Restores Williams's wrongly neglected play to a central place in the canon

The Guardian