I am Bruce Adams.

Director of theatre.
Wearer of oversized black clothing.
Purveyor of hyperbolic autobiographical text.

My directing practice is located at the intersection between scenography and dramaturgy. I founded Thrust in 2007 and have since led the company in critically acclaimed work which subjects new and found texts to bold visual and dramaturgical interventions. My revival of Pornography at Brighton Fringe in 2013, which sited itself in retrospect to the 2012 Olympics and the legacy of the 7/7 bombings, was described by Pedro de Senna as “one of the most powerful productions I’ve seen anywhere in contemporary British theatre”.

Indeed, if I could ever presume to call my work powerful, then it comes from an obsessive-compulsion for stripping back all the clutter and bullshit, exploding the subject, and giving the audience the job of reassembling the bits. My research is focused on the aesthetic of chaos, an approach to theatre-making that originated with my collaborators in our early intermedial work and drew inspiration from Katie Mitchell’s work in adaptation, centring on the visual aesthetic of the theatre machine that is both the image and the means by which the image is produced.

(Or something like that.)

I have made work at influential venues including Theatre503 and the King’s Head Theatre, as well as at major festivals across the UK. I created and curate More Storm Festival for brand-new and unfinished theatre, which has given a platform to dozens of emerging artists to try out their work in a supportive and seriously beautiful setting. The amazing Dana Segal described it as “easily the most exciting scratch night in London”. In 2016 I worked with Middlesex University to launch Theatre Arts Exchange, a pop-up venue at the Edinburgh festival, which in its debut season hosted 14 world premieres (interviewed here by Paul Levy for FringeReview).

I lecture in theatre arts at Middlesex University, where I trained as a theatre director and am currently a doctoral candidate in contemporary dramaturgy. I live in London with my husband and houseplants.