Mark Yeoman is currently the Artistic Director of the Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival in the Netherlands. Taking place each year in August, the Noorderzon is a curious mix of popular summer fest and cutting edge new international theater and dance. “We like to think that also we are experimenting with form.” Having grown up in Britain, he studied History at St. Andrews University before moving to Germany in 1986, and since then has been first an actor, then a writer and freelance director in various countries in Europe, and by now speaks several languages, some of them quite badly. After being 'traumatized by Shakespeare' at an early age, his work has often focused on 'the de-mystification of the theater, in order to make more clear what is special about it'. He has served several years as an external adviser on international project funding to the Dutch Cultural Fund (FPK+), and recently was a mentor on the EU Space program for Young International Programmers.