Katie has directed over 100 productions in a career spanning forty years. She has been an Associate Director at the RSC, National Theatre and The Royal Court Theatre.  She is currently Resident Director at the Berlin Schaubuhne and the Hamburg Schaupielhaus.  In 2009 she was awarded an OBE and in 2017 the British Academy’s Presidents Medal for services to drama. She teaches extensively in universities, conservatoires and schools and is Professor of Theatre Directing at Royal Holloway University. 

For the Royal Court: Bluets, Anatomy of a Suicide, Ophelias Zimmer (& Berlin Schaubühne), 2071, Ten Billion, The City, The Country, Forty Winks, Nightsongs, Mountain Language/Ashes to Ashes, Live like Pigs.  

Other theatre includes: Bernarda Albas Haus, 4.48 Psychosis, Travelling on One Leg, Happy Days (Hamburg Schauspielhaus); Orlando, Miss Julie, Lungs, The Yellow Wallpaper, Not the End of the World (Schaubühne, Berlin); The Maids (Toneelgroep, Amsterdam); A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (Vienna Burgtheater); Night Train, Rings of Saturn, Request Programme (Cologne Schauspielhaus); Easter, Krapps Last Tape, Night and Dreams (Dramaten Theatre, Stockholm); Cleansed, Women of Troy, Iphigenia at Aulis, Three Sisters, Ivanov, Dream Play, The Seagull, Waves, Dream Play (National); The Cherry Orchard, Ivanov (Young Vic); Little Scratch, Say it with Flowers, The Trial of Ubu (Hampstead).  

Opera includes: Houses Slide (Britten Sinfonia); Pelleas et Melisande, Alcina, Trauernacht, The House Taken Over, Written on Skin (Aix en Provence Festival); The Blue Woman, Lucia di Lammermoor, Lessons in Love and Violence, Theodora (Royal Opera House); Le Vin Herbe, Neither (Staatsoper, Berlin); Al Gran Sole Carico D’Amore (Salzburg Festival); Orest, Jenufa (Dutch National Opera); St Matthew’s Passion (Glyndebourne Opera); Bluebeard’s Castle (Munich Staatsoper).  

Awards include: Best Director for International Opera Awards, Golden Mask Award for Best Opera Director, The Tonic Award, The Stanislavsky International Prize, Best Director Nestroy Prize (Austria), Best Production Reumert Prize (Denmark), Golden Mask Award for Best Foreign Production (Russia), Europe Theatre Prize, OBIE Best Production Award, Evening Standard Best Director Award and the Theatertreffen Prize in 2008, 2009, 2020 and 2025.