Jeremy Thomas-Poulsen

BIOGRAPHY:

I am an American stage director, living in Copenhagen, Denmark. I received my Master of Fine Arts degree in directing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 2011 and before that, a Bachelor of Arts degree in directing and theatre producing from Avila University, in 2004.

Born in 1981, in Kansas City, Missouri, I first started directing when I was 18 years-old. My first production was This is a Test, by Stephen Gregg, with which I won first place at Missouri’s regional directing competition. Since that time, I have continued to direct and over the past 14 years, I have directed over 20 productions, both in English and Danish, along with several staged readings and a radio drama. More specific information on these projects can be found in the my resume and portfolio sections.

While training at the university, I worked with a variety of theatrical styles such as: realism, absurdism, modernism and post-modernism, and techniques such as: multi-media, pantomime, Suzuki Method and Bogart’s Viewpoints and Composition. Along with earning 2 degrees in directing, I grew up in the American regional theatres, first in Kansas City, MO and then in Madison, WI. Here I learned the most about directing from the variety of professional directors working in these communities. After moving to Denmark, I have continued to learn from the variety of professional directors I have assisted. This broad-scope has given me a very different perspective on what theatre can do and what it is best at.

Theatre is passion, tension, a deeply felt emotional connection that weaves itself in and out of our collective consciousness, it is poetry. The basis of every story can and should be found already embroidered in the inner lining of our hearts, and the connective tissue that links our hearts to the primal portions of our brains. Theatre is a dance between words, ideas, expressions and the inner workings of the mind. It evokes, plays on the senses, in order to enrich, enlighten, and give release. It is the dance, which is personal, intimate, passionate that is expressed through the poetry of visual images, language, and music working together to enchant the mind and open doorways, lighting the corridors of eternal darkness. In order to express this poetry, theatre has to be multi-dimensional, crossing genres, textures, mixing visual and auditory imagery, to create the spark that is imagination.

For these reasons, I work in creating a multi-textural environment and am constantly blending styles and genres, to spark new breeds of theatrical variety. In creating these environments, I always start with the text and work outwards. Nothing is arbitrary. I start by looking deep within the text for the seed of inspiration and then express this idea in as many different ways required to emotionally experience the core idea. In this way, I am also a minimalist and use only the forms of expression necessary to spark the imagination, as the imagination can create far more and better images than can ever be created on stage in any given evening.

I am always looking for new projects and new ways to tell stories. If you are interested in working together please feel free to contact me.