Sebastian Doggart

Sebastian Doggart

Sebastian Doggart (b. 6 April, 1970 London, England) is a producer, director, writer, translator, cinematographer and human rights activist.

Education

Doggart was educated at Montessori primary schools, Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, where he obtained the top First class degree in Social and Political Sciences, and an MA, and was elected a Scholar [1].

Early writing career

Doggart began his career as a journalist in Latin America, working as a reporter on the Lima Times during two years he took off before going up to Cambridge. Within three months on the job, he was promoted to co-Editor of the newspaper. At 19, he was the youngest editor the paper had had. In 1990, he moved to Argentina, where he became Finance and Economics Editor for the Buenos Aires Herald,[2] chronicling an extraordinary period of hyperinflation, wholescale privatizations, and deregulation under President Carlos Menem's neo-liberal government.

Doggart parlayed his journalism work into a book, Investment Opportunities in Argentina, which had a foreword by Menem himself. Published in 1990, a month after he went up to Cambridge, Doggart's own own tutor, Dr. David Lehmann, reviewed the book in Professional Investor: "As the first optimistic economic report on Argentina to have been produced for some 20 years, this study acts as a clear indicator of the international business community's growing interest in the region."

Theatre career

After leaving Cambridge, Doggart trained as a drama director at Central School of Speech and Drama. His production of Ms Lear -- which radically re-interpreted King Lear as a neo-Thatcherite woman -- performed at theatres in London and Amsterdam. On graduating, he directed productions for eminent British companies Cheek by Jowl (world tour of Duchess of Malfi); Actors Touring Company (Ion by Euripides); and Creation Theatre Company (Romeo and Juliet).

Doggart established himself as the pre-eminent translator/director of Latin American plays on the British stage. His production of Mistress of Desires, on which he collaborated directly with Mario Vargas Llosa, premiered in 1993. He worked directly with Carlos Fuentes on the British premiere of Orchids in the Moonlight, a dream play about the love between two Mexican actresses exiled in Hollywood's maze of mirrors. Doggart rehearsed the play in Cuba and opened in the Teatro Nacional, Havana. The production went on to perform at the Edinburgh Festival. According to Scotland on Sunday, the production was "rich in language and movement, fantasy and reality, sensuality and cruelty; as iconoclastic as the magic realist boom of the 1960s." In 1994, Doggart translated and directed Night of the Assassins, by the Cuban author Jose Triana, staging it at the Technis theatre in London and at the Edinburgh Festival. According to The Scotsman: "Brilliant, at times almost unbearable to watch, the British premiere of this award-winning Cuban play is utterly compelling... The atmosphere of oppression is almost tangible as the audience feel themselves entangled in the hysteria and power games of three siblings enacting or re-enacting the murder of their parents." In 1996, Doggart translated and directed a double bill of plays at The Gate theatre: Saying Yes, by Griselda Gambaro and Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz, with whom he collaborated on the translation. Sarah Alexander played the leading role of Beatrice. That same translation has been staged internationally, including a production by the Santa Fe Playhouse in July 2006. Doggart has since translated the only plays of two other leading Latin American writers: Diatribe of Love against a sitting man, by Gabriel García Márquez, and The Kings by Julio Cortázar.

In 1998, Doggart produced 'Lorca Fiesta', a major festival in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The event included an academic conference of international scholars and translators of Lorca and a dramatization of Lorca's Poet in New York, which Doggart adapted and directed. He was also producer and dramaturg for The Moon Comes Out, Federico, a collaboration between Northern Stage and the Seville-based company Octubre Danza, which fused story-telling, contemporary dance and live cante jondo to enact Lorca's long poem 'Lament to Ignacio Sanchez Mejias'.

Political & Human Rights career

In 1993, Doggart led an Amnesty International campaign called Why the Silence? to investigate human rights abuses in Equatorial Guinea. [3]

In 1997, Doggart was a campaign manager on Martin Bell's successful bid to become the first Independent MP to be elected to the British Parliament since 1945.

In 2000, Doggart co-founded the Felices Los Normales program at the Gaia arts center in Havana, Cuba, raising awareness about HIV/AIDS through improvised theater. [4]

Television career

In 1999, Doggart branched into television production, where he produced and/or directed for the BBC (Tomorrow's World'); Channel Four (Living on the Line), and ITV and Bravo (South Bank Show and Two Thousand Years). The Financial Times wrote of Two Thousand Years: "Well made and highly informative, the first series truly to deserve the 'Millennium label'." His interview profiles included Germaine Greer, Kenneth Branagh and Nobel prize-winning Octavio Paz.

Sebastian Doggart at 2005 Emmys

In 2000, Doggart moved to the United States where he produced/directed major TV series including:

-Project Runway for Bravo, described by The New York Times as "the Prada of reality shows", and nominated for a 2005 Primetime Emmy,;

File:DoggartClarkson.jpg

Sebastian Doggart directing Kelly Clarkson on MTV's 'Damage Control'

-15 Films About Madonna for A&E -- a one-hour one-off film, notable because Doggart directed and co-wrote 15 short films of totally different genres: animation, documentary, drama, mock political campaign ads, mock infomercial, comedy, mock 1950s PSA, and music video. The film was chosen to represent Great Britain at the 2008 Muestra de Jovenes Realizadores [5] in Havana, Cuba and played at the prestigious Cine Charles Chaplin.

Doggart directing '15 Films About Madonna'

-Two series (15 episodes) of Damage Control (TV series) for MTV, directing celebrities including Kelly Clarkson and Hulk Hogan,;

-30 Days for FX, hosted by Oscar-nominated Morgan Spurlock and nominated for a Producers Guild of America award,;

-American Candidate for Showtime Network, a reality show about aspiring presidential candidates

-Hollywood Vice for E4, a documentary series following the lives of policemen and criminals on both sides of the moral divide in Los Angeles. According to The Express: "This warts-and-all series gives a shocking insight into what goes on after dark on the back streets of LA."

-Raid Gauloises for Channel 4/TF1, an adventure race over Vietnam

-History of Movie Genres for Film4/Bravo

Film Career

After writing and directing two short fictional films, Hole in the Wall and Three and a Bed, Doggart spent three years making Courting Condi, the first musical docu-tragi-comedy in the history of cinema. The film won 22 awards on the festival circuit, and was critically acclaimed. [6] [7] By combining screenings of the film with public debates about its subject, Condoleezza Rice's record in office, Doggart fueled calls for Rice to be investigated for human rights abuses and war crimes. [8]

In 2009, Doggart directed and produced another film about Rice, American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi. This investigative documentary charts Rice's pursuit and misuse of power, and reveals the direct role she had in fabricating reasons for going to war in Iraq, and in ordering torture, especially in CIA black sites around the world. [9] Amnesty International screened a rough cut of the film at Stanford University on the eve of Rice's return to the university, [10] adding to pressure on Stanford authorities to expel her from the university. [11]

Doggart has written two other screenplays, Casanova's Return and Clinton a Neuro-Musical [12].

He is a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Writing career

Doggart has had three books published, one on Federico García Lorca one on Latin American theatre and the third on the Argentine economy. [13] He has been a principal contributor to four other books – Purple Homicide: Fear and Loathing on Knutsford Heath (Bloomsbury, 1998), Raymond Chandler: A Biography (Atlantic, 1997), Reflections in a Family Mirror (Red House, 2002), and Time Out: Havana (Penguin, 2001, 2005, 2007) – and has written for The New Statesman, the The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph.

Family

Doggart is the grandson of the eminent ophthalmologist and writer James Hamilton Doggart; son of the author/development economist Caroline Doggart; brother of the conservationist Nike Doggart; nephew of the cricketer and educator, Hubert Doggart; cousin of the headmaster, Simon Doggart; and father of Orson Doggart.

Publications

• Fire, Blood and the Alphabet: One Hundred Years of Lorca, Sebastian Doggart & Michael Thompson, 1999, University of Durham, ISBN 0-907310-44-3
• Stage Labyrinths: Latin American Plays, edited, translated and introduction by Sebastian Doggart, 1996, Nick Hern Books, ISBN 1-85459-249-1
• Time Out: Havana, Sebastian Doggart (contributor), 2001, ISBN 0-14-100029-5
• Time Out: Havana, Sebastian Doggart (contributor), 2005, ISBN 1904978-83-5
• Time Out: Havana, Sebastian Doggart (contributor), 2007
• Investment Opportunities in Argentina, Sebastian Doggart, 1991, Southern Development Trust, ISBN 0951714406
• Cary Grant: A Class Apart, Graham McCann, 1998, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-10885-0
• Raymond Chandler: A Biography, Tom Hiney, 1999, Grove Press, ISBN 0802136370; ISBN 978-0802136374
• Purple Homicide: Fear and Loathing on Knutsford Heath, John Sweeney, 1998, Bloomsbury Press, ISBN 0747539707d

Newspaper & Journal articles

• 'Why I love reality TV', by Sebastian Doggart, The Observer, [14]
• 'Bellissimo! How we won Tatton', by Sebastian Doggart, New Statesman, pp.28-30
• 'Ultra-patriotic USA is dreaming of a star-spangled Christmas', by Sebastian Doggart & Oliver Poole, The Daily Telegraph, December 24, 2001
• 'The new Millennium starts here', by Sebastian Doggart, The Sunday Telegraph, December 12, 1999, p. 19
• 'Talking Latin', by Sebastian Doggart, Scotland on Sunday, August 30, 1992
• 'All rise for a girl king', by Sebastian Doggart, The Guardian, March 3, 1997
• 'Innocent Erendira', by Sebastian Doggart, Time Out, Sep 29-Oct 6, 1993
• 'Foxed by the Carnival,' by Sebastian Doggart, The Guardian, August 28, 2000, p. 15
• 'The relentless rise of offshore centres', by Caroline Doggart & Sebastian Doggart, Impact, Jan/Feb 1998, issue 5, pp.4-5

Reviews of work

• 'Catwalks and Catfights', by Sean Smith, Newsweek, February 28, 2005, p. 61
• 'Hemlines on the Stand', by Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times, February 16, 2005, p.1
• 'Opportunities in Argentina challenges a few investors, International Herald Tribune, March 23-24, 1991
• 'Argentinian investment, anyone?', ABA Banking Journal, American Bankers Association, June 1991, p. 9
• 'Argentina's great investment potential', The Indepedent, April 27, 1991, p. 22
• 'El lector como Edipo Rex,' by Jorge Lagos, Cronica Latina, March 1997,
• 'Review: Fire, Blood and the Alphabet', Forum For Modern Language Studies 37/3, 2001
• 'Reviews', by Sarah Leggott, A.U.M.L.A., May 2001
• 'Steps Argentina towards stability?', Friso End't Business Report, Vol VI, Apr 19, 1991
• 'Few takers for lone venture', The Daily Telegraph, March 20, 1991
• 'Investing in the gaucho club', by Dr. David Lehmann, Professional Investor, 1991
• 'Argentina steps towards stability', by Martin Barrow, The Times, March 18, 1991
• 'Argentina: petrochemical paradise?', Chemistry and Industry, number 10, 20 May 1991
• 'Night of the Assassins', by Thea Jourdan, The Scotsman, August 29, 1994
• 'Orchids in the Moonlight', Scotland on Sunday, August 23, 1992
• 'Love, Fidelity and cats', by James Verini, Los Angeles Times, November 28, 2002
• 'Hollywood Vice', Metro, January 24, 2002, p. 22
• 'Two Thousand Years', Financial Times,, April 28, 1999, p. 22 (Arts)
• 'How we became what we are', by Stephen Pile, Daily Telegraph,
• 'TV review: Living on the Line', by Sue Greenway, Western Daily Press, December 31, 1999, p. 22
• 'Time to forget those old TV acquaintances', by Paul Hoggart, The Times", December 31, 1999
• 'Living on the Line (C4)', by Christopher Matthew, Daily Mail, December 31, 1999
• 'Hollywood Vice', by Charlotte Civil, The Express, August 8, 2002, p. 49
• 'Hollywood Vice', Daily Record, August 8, 2002, p. 37
• '30 Days', Hollywood Reporter, June 15, 2006
• 'A search for self in the secret garden', The New Mexican, July 21-27, 2006

External links

• Sebastian Doggart at IMDb