Tanuja Amarasuriya

I'm a Director and Dramaturg working in theatre, audio, screen and XR. I co-founded Sleepdogs with Timothy X Atack and I'm a resident at Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio.

I won the 2024 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director's Award and am an alumnus of the National Theatre's Directors Course.

Please get in touch if you're interested in working with me.

Directing credits include: DELAY (Bristol Old Vic); Private Lives (Octagon Theatre/Mercury Theatre/Rose Theatre/Northern Stage); Out of Sorts (Theatre503); Absolute Scenes (site-specific at the Marble Factory); Julius Caesar (Malcolm X Centre); The Paper Man (Soho Theatre & Tobacco Factory Theatre); The Bullet and the Bass Trombone (Bristol Old Vic/UK tour).

I've been Associate Director to Dominic Cooke in the West End on Good (Harold Pinter Theatre), Medea (@sohoplace theatre) and on the new musical adaptation of Rock Follies (Chichester Festival). I was the National Theatre's Staff Director on Max Webster's production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

"Director Tanuja Amarasuriya orchestrates the production with a quiet brilliance, crafting a world that feels both expansive and crushingly small. Nothing is overstated, yet each detail is honed, from Lawther’s voice, brimming with youthful longing, drifting through the void, to Jaymes’ every measured movement."
Kris Hallett, Life As Theatre, on DELAY.

“It's highly unlikely you'll experience a more unforgettably visceral, immersive, darkly intense and mesmerisingly beautiful theatrical 105 minutes this year.”
365Bristol.com on Dark Land Light House.

Dramaturgy credits include: Arch (Kaleider/international tour); Forest 404 (BBC Sounds); You Heard Me (Luca Rutherford/UK tour); Ice Road (Raucous). More info on the Dramaturgy project page.

I have given talks, guest lectures, workshops and masterclasses including for the Dramaturg's Network, Watershed, Storyfutures Academy, Beyond Face, JMK Regional Directors Programme, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Bristol University, Warwick University, Wimbledon College.

My published talks and essays include: Breaking theatre is more fun than making theatre for Watershed Pervasive Media Studio; Wrong Kind of Asian, Wrong Kind of Work published in the Stages of Resistance salon series; Feeling Being, a collection of essays on performance and technology for Watershed/Bristol & Bath Creative R&D, plus essays for D.I.Y (University of Chichester, UK, 2014), An Audience (R)evolution (Theater Communications Group, USA, 2016), Towards A Future Theatre (Bloomsbury, 2022) and on the Sleepdogs Notebook.

I've occasionally worked as a digital composer, and my work includes the LNK_A EP (Sleepdogs) and Residue (Channel4/Random Acts). I spent a couple of years trying my hand at sound design for theatre, and though it's not something I offer any longer (it didn't allow me to be me), I'm proud that my work included: salt. by Selina Thompson; Status by Chris Thorpe & Rachel Chavkin; The Half God of Rainfall by Inua Ellams, directed by Nancy Medina.

And back in the mists of time, I was Co-Director of Theatre Bristol; Associate Producer at In Between Time Festival; Live Art and Dance programme co-ordinator at Arnolfini; and served on the boards of Uninvited Guests, the Mike Atack Trust, and New Work Network. I also sold books at Waterstones (back when they still mostly sold books) and vinyl (plus also duvets, for... reasons) at Replay Records (long closed now, but a Bristol legend, and always in my heart).

"Tanuja Amarasuriyaʼs production brings out the playʼs warmth and humour. All of the characters are permitted depth and nuance, all of the relationships are shaded, no one is beyond redemption, and a sense of tenderness permeates the whole piece."
The Stage, on Out of Sorts