Alex Brok

Biography

Having completed his training in Theatre Design at the Amsterdam School of the Arts, Alex Brok left his native shores of The Netherlands in 1999 for Stanford University in California, United States. There, he taught Lighting Design and executed various productions within the theater department of the university, including; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, End Game and Venus.

Alex went on to work for The San Francisco Opera on productions including; A Streetcar Named Desire with lighting designer Tom Munn and Arabella with lighting designer Michael Whitfield. He also worked in San Mateo, California, alongside lighting designer Michael Ramsaur on several musicals.

During his time in the US, Alex’s lighting design for the theater performance When the shark bites was selected for exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial of Design & Space, Czech Republic in 2003.

Upon his return to The Netherlands Alex worked as a lighting designer for numerous opera, theater and dance productions across Europe. He also created many designs in the Royal Concert Hall in Amsterdam for shows such as West Side Story, operas including L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.

As part of a ground-breaking creative team, Alex brought various musical experiences to the Royal Concert Hall with musicians such as Patrick Watson, CocoRosie and Fink playing live with the Royal Concert Hall Orchestra.

He has also worked closely together with Holland Symphonia, the orchestra for the National Ballet and the National Dance Theater and designed for leading choreographers such as Christof Pastor, Itzik Galili, and Ed Wubbe and Hans Van Manen.

Over the past nine years, Alex has created the lighting design for the Dutch leg of the Peking Acrobats European tour, and most recently their Portuguese tour.
Throughout his career, Alex has worked with leading directors and given form to the concepts of leading scenographers in an impressive display of productions which include; Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, L’elisir d’amore, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, La pietra del paragone, Where the wild things are, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Albert Herring, Death in Venice, Greek, Les mamelles de Tirésias, La voix humaine, Dialogues des carmélites, Gianni Schicchi, Dido and Aeneas, Hänsel und Gretel, Die Dreigroschenoper, Bastien und Bastienne, Háry János, Dvĕ vdovy (The Two Widows) and Příhody lišky Bystroušky (Cunning Little Vixen).

In close collaboration with director Floris Visser, he designed operas Agrippina, Clemenza di Tito, Il signor Bruschino, Carmen, Owen Wingrave, and La bohème.