Alexander Morfov (Bulgarian: Александър Морфов; born 9 November 1960) is a Bulgarian theater and cinema director.
Biography
Alexander Morfov was born in 1960 in Yambol. His father was an officer, and his mother was a teacher in Russian language and literature, music, and also a conductor of a folklore choir in Sliven. After Morfov graduated from mathematical high school, he attended lectures for two years at the Technical University of Varna.
Morfov's theater career began while he was a student, when he participated as an assistant stage director in Stoyan Alexiev's theater company. After quitting university he began working in the theater in Sliven as a stage worker and later light manager. In 1984 he was enrolled in the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA) in Sofia. He graduated from the Academy with a double major in stage directing for drama and puppet theater (1990) in the class of Julia Ognyanova and cinema directing (1994) in the class of Georgi Djulgerov.
Early work
His earliest works on a professional stage were in the Rhodope drama theater, where he was the author and director of the satire Political cabaret (1990). Immediately after his sophomore production he was invited to work at the Little City Theatre "Off the Channel" where he staged Pere Ubu by Alfred Jarry (1991), followed by The Tempest (1992) and Hamlet by Shakespeare in the La Strada Theater.
Professional career in Bulgaria
From 1994 to 2000, Morfov has been the Chief director at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre of Bulgaria. Morfov's first shows at the National Theatre were his original version of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes and a revised version of The Tempest. These two productions launched a new process of attracting young and modern-thinking audiences to the theater. With his next production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Morfov became one of the most prominent theater directors in Bulgaria. His original version of The Decameron, or Passion and Blood after Boccaccio, also bears the traits of his stylistics. The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky reflected Morfov's civil opinion and his typical theatricality. Exiles (2004) after a novel by Ivan Vazov, the national poet and writer, is the logical continuation of the latter. His other productions on the leading stage in the country include: Night of Miracles after Beckett, Mrozek and Ionesco; Dom Juan by Molière; One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest; and Life Is Beautiful after Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide.
In 2000 he was appointed managing and artistic director of the Ivan Vazov National Theater. He was dismissed from this position following a major conflict with the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture. All of his productions were taken off the theater's repertory.
International success
Since 2001 he has been working in Russia. His first show, The Tempest, in the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre in St. Petersburg, was honoured with Russia's most prestigious theatre award, the Golden Mask. Immediately after that he was invited to Moscow, to the theatre of the Russian actor Alexander Kalyagin, Et cetera, where he staged Don Quixote and Pere Ubu with Kalyagin in the leading role. Both productions were nominated for the Golden Mask Award and Kalyagin received the award for Best Performance for the role of Pere Ubu. Between 2003 and 2006 Morfov was appointed chief stage director in the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre, where he staged five productions and received the Golden Soffit Award for Dom Juan by Moliere and was again nominated for the Golden Mask Award. He also staged productions of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Aleksandr Abdulov and The Visit of the Old Lady with Maria Mironova in Lenkom Theatre. Morfov has received more than twenty national and international theatre awards, including the Golden Mask Award, Chaika [seagull], Crystal Turandot, and others.
He has also received the Bulgarian award of the Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, first rank, "for special merit in the field of culture and arts in Bulgaria". Morfov is doctor honoris causa of the University of Audiovisual Arts ESRA, in Paris, Skopje, and New York.
