Beejan Land (; born 14 February in Paddington, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian actor and playwright. He graduated from
National Institute of Dramatic Art
The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is an Australian educational institution for the performing arts is based in Sydney, New South Wales. Founded in 1958, many of Australia's leading actors and directors trained at NIDA, including Cat ...
and
Newtown High School of the Performing Arts
The Newtown High School of the Performing Arts is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive and specialist secondary day school in the suburb of Newtown in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is among a small number of performing a ...
Beejan also trained at the
L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq
École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq is a school of physical theatre located on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.
Founded in 1956 by Jacques Lecoq, the school offers a professional and intensive two-ye ...
. Beejan is also a graduate of ACTT's Talented Young Actors' Program,
National Institute of Dramatic Art
The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is an Australian educational institution for the performing arts is based in Sydney, New South Wales. Founded in 1958, many of Australia's leading actors and directors trained at NIDA, including Cat ...
Acting and Playwrighting programs. He also trained at
Australian Theatre for Young People
Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) is a not-for-profit national youth theatre company located in Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, Australia. It was founded in 1964 by Eleanor Witcombe.
History
The first committee was formed in 1964 and c ...
.
Early performing life
Beejan was born in Sydney Australia and is of Iranian/Persian origins. He started his performing career as a young magician. Performing at events and parties he quickly began to develop a name as a magician. In 1998 he was awarded first place Australian Convention of Magicians competition in the Walk on Walk off Section. He then began taking after school acting classes at the
Australian Theatre for Young People
Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) is a not-for-profit national youth theatre company located in Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, Australia. It was founded in 1964 by Eleanor Witcombe.
History
The first committee was formed in 1964 and c ...
in 1999. He took classes in Film, Theatre and Voice as well as master classes with other industry professionals. He performed in many productions with them giving him the experience and desire to continue his passions in the field of theatre and film. Mentors at
Australian Theatre for Young People
Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) is a not-for-profit national youth theatre company located in Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, Australia. It was founded in 1964 by Eleanor Witcombe.
History
The first committee was formed in 1964 and c ...
included
Nick Enright
Nicholas Paul Enright AM (22 December 1950 – 30 March 2003) was an Australian dramatist, playwright and theatre director.
Early life
Enright was born on 22 December 1950 to a prosperous professional Catholic family in East Maitland, New So ...
,
Victoria Longley,
Kate Champion and
David Berthold
David Berthold is one of Australia's most prominent theatre directors and cultural leaders. He has directed for most of Australia's major theatre companies, as well as in London and Berlin, and has led several key arts organisations. He was Artis ...
.
Early career
Beejan's acting debut really came around when he set up ROAR Theatre Company in 2004. An independent theatre company with a drive to combine emerging artists with established professionals in order enhance and develop and Australian voice.
A co-production with
Darlinghurst Theatre
Darlinghurst Theatre is an independent theatre company based at the Eternity Playhouse in Darlinghurst, New South Wales.
Glenn Terry established the company in 1993 initially as an inner-city drama school. Darlinghurst Theatre productions were ...
saw him produce and act in a production of Vicious Streaks by
Alex Broun he asked
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
''Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome'' is a 1985 Australian post-apocalyptic dystopian action film directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie and written by Miller and Terry Hayes. It stars Mel Gibson and Tina Turner in a story of a lone roving warr ...
director
George Ogilvie
George Buchan Ogilvie (5 March 1931 – 5 April 2020) was a prolific Australian theatre director and actor, who also worked as a director and actor within film and television.
Life and career
George Ogilvie began as an actor at the Canberra ...
to direct along with then emerging director Lee Lewis. The production also featured
Peter Mochrie
Peter Mochrie (born 23 March 1959), is an Australian actor whose career spans over forty years in the industry, primarily featuring in television soap opera's, he has also worked in New Zealand, where he spent six years as Dr. Callum McKay in ...
and Jacinta John. The same year he was named Australia's Youngest theatre producers,
He also won the
Sydney Theatre Company's Young Playwrights Award.
Career
Beejan was asked by the
Melbourne Theatre Company
The Melbourne Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1953 as the Union Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre at the University of Melbourne, it is the oldest professional theatre com ...
to perform in their main-stage production of
The History Boys
''The History Boys'' is a play by British playwright Alan Bennett. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre in London on 18 May 2004. Its Broadway debut was on 23 April 2006 at the Broadhurst Theatre where 185 performances were staged be ...
written by
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two ...
and directed by Peter Evans. The production played a sold out season at
The Arts Centre
Arts Centre Melbourne, originally known as the Victorian Arts Centre and briefly called the Arts Centre, is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the central M ...
. The production featured other Australian actors such as
Matthew Newton
Matthew Joseph Newton (born January 22, 1977) is an Australian actor, writer, and director, and son of TV personalities Bert Newton, Bert and Patti Newton. His acting career was interrupted by treatment in a psychiatric unit for bipolar disor ...
,
Ashley Zukerman
Ashley Zukerman (born 30 December 1983) is an Australian-American actor known for playing Dr. Charlie Isaacs on WGN America's ''Manhattan'', Senior Constable Michael Sandrelli in Australian drama series ''Rush'', and Jesse Banks in the Australia ...
and
Ben Geurens
Ben Geurens (born 24 December 1979) is an Australian actor.
Biography
Geurens graduated from NIDA in 2004. At drama school his credits include '' The Return'', '' Romeo and Juliet'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'', and ''Who's Afraid of the Working ...
.
Beejan has performed in stage plays by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
,
Michael Gow
Michael Gow is an Australian playwright and director most famed for his 1986 work '' Away''.
Early life
As a student at Sydney University, Gow acted and directed with the Dramatic Society from 1973-1976. After graduation, Gow went on to act pr ...
,
David Hare,
Bertold Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...
,
Debra Oswald
Debra Oswald (born 1959) is an Australian writer for film, television, stage, radio and children's fiction. In 2008 her ''Stories in the Dark'' won Best Play in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. She created and was head writer of the Channel 10 ...
,
Ned Manning
Ned Manning is an Australian playwright, actor and teacher. His film credits include the lead role in '' Dead End Drive-In'' (1986), and television credits include '' The Shiralee'' and ''Prisoner'', and ''Brides of Christ''. His plays include ' ...
,
Cyril Tourneur
Cyril Tourneur (; died 28 February 1626) was an English soldier, diplomat and dramatist who wrote ''The Atheist's Tragedy'' (published 1611); another (and better-known) play, ''The Revenger's Tragedy'' (1607), formerly ascribed to him, is now more ...
,
Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt ''Midleton'') was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. He, with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson, was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jac ...
,
Alfred Jarry,
Alex Broun,
Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist.
Ravenhill is one of the most widely performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His major plays include ''Shoppin ...
,
Tommy Murphy,
Nazım Hikmet Ran
A nazim is the coordinator of a city or town in Pakistan.
Nazim or variant spellings may also refer to:
*Nazim (given name), including a list of people with the given name
*Nazim (surname) Nazim also spelled Nadhem, Nadhim, Nadhum or Nazem; ar, ...
,
Frank Marcus
Frank Ulrich Marcus (30 June 1928 – 5 August 1996) was a British playwright, best known for ''The Killing of Sister George''.
Life and career
Marcus was born 30 June 1928 into a Jewish family in Breslau (then in Germany). They came to Eng ...
,
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two ...
,
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work ''Angels in America'' which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn ...
and
José Rivera
In 2004 he co-starred in
The Black Balloon director
Elissa Down
Elissa Down is an Australian filmmaker, who in 1999 and 2000, was nominated for Young Film-maker of the year at the WA Screen Awards.
Her major works are a number of award-winning short films, ''Summer Angst'', ''The Cherry Orchard'', ''Her Ou ...
's Tropfest short film Summer Angst. He also guest starred in an episode of the Australian medical drama series
All Saints (TV series)
In 2005 he toured to Northern Ireland performing in
Debra Oswald
Debra Oswald (born 1959) is an Australian writer for film, television, stage, radio and children's fiction. In 2008 her ''Stories in the Dark'' won Best Play in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. She created and was head writer of the Channel 10 ...
's Skate at the
Belfast Festival at Queens.
As a Playwright his own plays have been performed by
Griffin Theatre Company
Griffin Theatre Company is an Australian theatre specialising in new works, based in Sydney. Founded in 1979, it is the resident theatre company at the SBW Stables Theatre in Kings Cross. the artistic director is Declan Green.
Artistic direc ...
,
Sydney Theatre Company and
Tamarama Rock Surfers.
2008 saw Beejan join
Wayne Hope
Wayne Hope is an Australian actor, writer, director, and producer.
Career
Television
Hope's acting career began in 1996, when he appeared on ''The Glynn Nicholas Show''. Some of his acting roles have been in the following shows:
*'' The Gly ...
,
Kym Gyngell and the cast of Australian comedy series
Very Small Business (TV series)
''Very Small Business'' is an Australian television comedy series first broadcast on Wednesday 3 September 2008 on ABC1. The series is written by Wayne Hope, Gary McCaffrie, and Robyn Butler, and produced by Hope and Butler. It comprises fourtee ...
as Taxation Officer, Lynton McGyver
In 2009 he joined the world-famous theatre troupe Le
Théâtre du Soleil
Le Théâtre du Soleil (, "The Theater of the Sun") is a Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble founded by Ariane Mnouchkine, Philippe Léotard and fellow students of the '' L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq'' in 1964 as a collecti ...
to continue his research and experience in the theatrical arts.
After a forceful nudge by world-renowned Theatre director
Ariane Mnouchkine
Ariane Mnouchkine (; born 3 March 1939) is a French stage director. She founded the Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble ''Théâtre du Soleil'' in 1964. She wrote and directed ''1789'' (1974) and ''Molière'' (1978), and directed ''La Nuit Mirac ...
Beejan decided to undertake further studies at
L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq
École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq is a school of physical theatre located on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.
Founded in 1956 by Jacques Lecoq, the school offers a professional and intensive two-ye ...
at the same time as creating a new work with the
Théâtre du Soleil
Le Théâtre du Soleil (, "The Theater of the Sun") is a Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble founded by Ariane Mnouchkine, Philippe Léotard and fellow students of the '' L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq'' in 1964 as a collecti ...
. Beejan has since been with the company.
Filmography
Theatre
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Land, Beejan
1989 births
Living people
Male actors from Sydney
Australian dramatists and playwrights
Australian people of Turkish descent
Australian people of Iranian descent
Australian male film actors
Australian male stage actors
Australian male television actors
Writers from Sydney
L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq alumni