Phyllida Lloyd

Phyllida Lloyd is a British lesbian theatre and film director who spent five years in BBC television drama after graduating from Bristol University, before rising through regional theatre to direct a transfer of John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation from the Royal Court in 1992, her first commercial success. She went on to direct acclaimed productions of Terry Johnson's Hysteria at the Royal Court and Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera at the Donmar Warehouse, before building a parallel career as an opera director. She is known for Mamma Mia! (2008), one of the highest-grossing musical films in history, and The Iron Lady (2011), which won Meryl Streep the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her all-female Shakespeare productions at the Donmar Warehouse (Julius Caesar, Henry IV, The Tempest) were critically acclaimed. She has been openly lesbian throughout her career and lives in London with her partner, writer Sarah Cooke.