John Bell AO AM OBE b1940

In 2009, Bell Shakespeare will employ more than 100 actors, directors, designers, artisans and technicians, in addition to the hundreds who will work on the company’s presentations in theatres around the country.

Bell’s productions have included Hamlet, Romeo And Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Richard 3, Pericles, Henry 4, Henry 5, Julius Caesar, Antony And Cleopatra, The Comedy Of Errors, Wars Of The Roses, Measure For Measure, Macbeth and As You Like It, as well as Goldoni’s The Servant Of Two Masters, Gogol’s The Government Inspector and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist.. His roles for the company include Shylock, Richard III, Macbeth, Malvolio, Coriolanus, Leontes, Prospero, King Lear and Ulysses. He recently directed Madame Butterfly for an Oz Opera national tour.

In 2002 Bell’s portrayal of Richard, Duke of Gloucester in Richard 3 earned him a Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor. He has a Producers and Directors Guild Award for Lifetime Achievement, and Honorary Doctorates of Letters from the Universities of Newcastle and Sydney. He has been honoured with an OBE (1978) and an AM (1987). In 2003 the Australia Business Arts Foundation awarded him the Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Cultural Leadership Award.

In the 2009 Australia Day Honours, Bell was named an Officer of the Order of Australia ‘for service to the performing arts, nationally and internationally, as an actor and a director, as a supporter of emerging artists, and through a range of educational programs.’

John Bell is married to actor Anna Volska. He is the father of dramatist Hilary Bell and actor Lucy Bell.