Viviane De Muynck, born in Mortsel (Belgium) in 1946, studied acting at the Brussels Conservatory and was a member of various Dutch and Belgian theatre companies and ensembles from 1980 onwards; she is best known as one of the definitive actresses of the Needcompany and is considered the grande dame of European theatre. In 1993 she began her close and long-lasting collaboration with Jan Lauwers and the Needcompany, with whom she has since performed all over the world. In addition to her work as a theatre, film and television actress, De Muynck directed The Vagina Monologues (2000) by Eve Ensler and Als ich im Sterben lag (2003) after William Faulkner at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. She has also realised numerous music theatre projects throughout Europe. In the German-speaking world, she was seen as an actress in the leading role in Ein Fest für Boris by Thomas Bernhard at the Salzburg Festival in 2007. Since 2021 she has been touring with the theatre solo Molly Bloom (directed by Jan Lauwers) after James Joyce. In 1987 De Muynck received the Dutch theatre prize Theo d'Or for the role of Martha in Sam Bogaert's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In 2016, she was awarded the Actor's Guild Career Prize at the Ghent Film Festival. At the Ostend Film Festival in 2017, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, she received the Ultima award for General Cultural Merit from the Flemish government.

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