Eline Arbo
Eline Arbo is Artistic Director at ITA since September 2023. From 2022 she was already linked to ITA as Associate Artistic Director. From January 2023, Arbo was appointed Ibsen Artist in Residence, an initiative of the Philip Loubser Foundation, which gives directors with an international ambition the opportunity to develop themselves artistically.
In season 24|25, she will create Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin) and The Wall (Marlen Haushofer); re-make The End of Eddy (Édouard Louis) and The Years (Annie Ernaux), which she previously directed elsewhere; and her stagings of The Laws (Connie Palmen), Prima Facie (Suzie Miller), Penthesilea (Heinrich von Kleist) and The Hours (Michael Cunningham) will be reprised.
C.V.
Arbo (1986) comes from Norway. After studying Theatre Studies at the University of Oslo, Arbo moved to Amsterdam for her studies at the Directing course at the Theaterschool Amsterdam, which she successfully completed in 2016.Her debut at Toneelschuur Productions was with Goethe's classic The Passion of Young Werther. It earned her the 2018 BNG Bank Theater Prize and the 2018 Toneelkijkers Award in The Hague. After this, she directed the much-discussed The Revolutionaries, about the ideas of Albert Camus. In 2020, she directed the hit novel The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis (Winner of the 2020 Directing Prize). A play that was widely acclaimed as the best play of season 2019/2020, and for which she also received the Toneelkijkersprijs 2020 in The Hague. As a collective, the four actors were nominated for the Louis d'Or. Her last production at Toneelschuur Productions was Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. In addition, she also directed several performances at the Noord Nederlands Toneel, including Roland Schimmelpfennig's successful Zwart Water, which toured the country in 2019.
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In addition to her work in the Netherlands, Arbo has also directed several performances in Norway, including Henrik Ibsen's Hærmennene på Helgeland which premiered at the Nationaltheatret in Oslo during the Ibsen Festival 2018. The production has been invited to play at Frankfurt Schauspielhaus. Also in 2019, she directed Henrik Ibsen's large production Peer Gynt, which was acclaimed by press and audiences. In addition, she directed the large production Maria Stewart by Schiller, which premiered in January 2021, and Jane Eyre, after the classic by Charlotte Brontë, in 2022.
In January 2021, Arbo won the prestigious Mary Dresselhuys award for her work in recent years.
In recent years in the Netherlands she directed among others The Hours (2021) by Michael Cunningham at ITA, The Years (2022) by Annie Ernaux (Nobel Prize winner 2022) at Het Nationale Theater, and Penthesilea (2023) by Heinrich von Kleist and Prima Facie (2023) by Suzie Miller.
In 2024, Timerne, her Danish revival of The Hours, premiered at Det Kongelige Teater Kobenhavn, and her adaptation of Connie Palmen's debut novel The Laws premiered at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam. Later in 2024, her English revival of The Years, will premiere at the Almeida Theatre in London and her play Haugtussa, which she is producing at the Nationaltheatret Oslo, will premiere at the Ruhrtriennale.
In spring 2025, her direction of Marlen Haushofer's The Wall will premiere at ITA.
