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Director. Born August 1, 1965, in Redding, England. Raised by his mother, an author of

children’s books, after his parents’ divorce, Mendes grew up in north London. He attended

Cambridge University, graduating in 1987. After graduation, he got a low-level job at the

Chichester Festival Theater. When a veteran director dropped out of a production of London

Assurance, the 23-year-old Mendes was asked to step in. The production became a hit, and

soon moved to Haymarket’s Theatre Royal. Mendes’s second effort, The Cherry Orchard,

starring Dame Judi Dench, opened later that same year.



By the end of 1991, Mendes had staged several productions for the renowned Royal

Shakespeare Company, including Troilus and Cressida, starring Ralph Fiennes, and The

Alchemist. He also helmed the acclaimed The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (1992), starring Jane

Horrocks, which was adapted into a 1998 film version, Little Voice, co-starring Horrocks and

Michael Caine.



In 1992, Mendes became the artistic director for the Donmar Warehouse, London’s prestigious

non-profit theater. At the Donmar, Mendes staged innovative productions of Richard III (1993)

and The Glass Menagerie (1996), as well as a striking update of Cabaret, which opened in

1994 and featured Horrocks and Alan Cumming. Also in 1994, he directed a hit revival of Oliver!

at the London Palladium, which became the theater’s longest-running production to date in 1998.

Mendes forged a friendship with legendary playwright Stephen Sondheim, directing a version of

his Assassins in 1992 at the...