Noah Birksted-Breen founded and runs Sputnik Theatre Company which is dedicated to bringing contemporary Russian plays to the UK. Sputnik has premiered eight new Russian plays in the UK in their first English language translations. In 2010, Sputnik launched the Russian Theatre Festival in association with Soho Theatre. As a freelance director, Noah has directed three contemporary British plays, most recently In Blood: The Bacchae by Frances Viner at the Arcola Theatre. He won a Channel 4 Theatre Directors’ Award and was attached as Resident Director to Hampstead Theatre for eighteen months. Noah recently co-authored his first play, On the Record, with Christine Bacon, about independent journalism, which was produced by iceandfire theatre company at the Arcola Theatre. Noah is also a professional translator of plays, academic works, film subtitles, short stories, poetry as well as commercial and legal translations. He passed the Translation Diploma from the Institute of Linguists with merit in the General Paper and distinctions in the specialist papers, Literature and Law. Noah graduated from Oxford University with a BA in Russian and French. He did an MSc in Political Economy at the LSE. He worked for a few years in the NGO sector before retraining in theatre with an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice (Playwriting) at the Central School of Speech and Drama.