André Agius has become a familiar face to local theatre enthusiasts. Since his first performance at the Manoel Theatre at the young age of 11, he has consistently soared to new heights, with frequent performances and theatrical involvements with both local and foreign productions. In recent years, he has made a shift from acting to directing, achieving his directorial debut with ‘Skylight’ by David Hare and performed at the Valletta University Campus.
Emma Micallef
Over the years, he has furthered his theatre education through study programmes at Rose Bruford College (UK), Odin Teatret (Denmark) and was also one of the participants in the Facing-the-Gap Youth Exchange in 2016 (Budapest). At present, he is in Scotland, having been one of only six students to be taken on for a Masters degree in Directing at the prestigious Edinburgh Napier University. It is in fact thanks to this educational programme that he exhibited his first directing project abroad earlier this week.
In collaboration with fellow student playwright Blue McElroy, the pair put up the first draft of The Arborist, a play inspired by Robert Lewis Stevenson’s poem Foreign Lands. The performance, which was held at St Augustine’s Chapel on George IV Bridge, is a venue which André confirms as a regular location used for the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In very simplified terms, the play discussed the delicate relationship between travel and personal growth, and how one directly effects the other. André looks back on it with pride: “unlike some other times where I directed a finished play, this task allowed me to work closely with a playwright and have a more active role in the developmental stage of the piece.”
Elisa Van Brockdorff
While he admits that it was all “quite exciting,” he confesses that it was also “a bit daunting when you present such a work in front of a room filled with Stevenson aficionados.” Despite the expected nerves, the director/actor confirms that he is quite proud of the work. Public feedback has been positive: “people really resonated with the central premise that as individuals we feel that when we are comfortable in our environment, we find it a daunting task to uproot, even if this has a guarantee of improving our current situation.”
Gianluca Mifsud
Despite always wanting to study abroad, André is using his time in Scotland to “clear my mind on what my priorities are and what I want to continue growing in and focusing on.” Asked about his personal preference between acting and directing, the actor/director affirms that he doesn’t see them as exclusive from one another, but rather “supportive”. “In my eyes, there is a mutual relationship between the two, so the fact that I started out as an actor, has given me the backbone to how I direct.” Despite currently training as a director, the fact does not exclude acting but suggests a healthy mix between the two: “I try to work on the things I enjoy as an actor, and bring those into the rehearsal room as a director.”