Lene Therese Teigen (cand.philol.) is a writer, playwright and director based in Oslo, Norway, She has been active as a playwright for over 30 years, since the short film "Reel" in 1991.

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She is educated in Bergen with a master in theater studies, specializing in dramaturgy and directing. Integrating academic research with artistic works is central to her. As a playwright, she creates texts with several equal characters with a special focus on gender awareness and equality.

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​Teigen worked as an actress before turning to a playwright and director in the late 80s, developing a artistic expression full of scenic and character shifts and a fierce use of moving images and sound. As a director, she is known for extensive use of visual and auditory effects and has been involved with Teater Ibsen, Teater Innlandet, Teater Vestland, Den Nationale Scene and NRK Radioteatret in addition to her own company HOUSE OF STORIES. 

 

She had her breakthrough as both playwright and director in 2001 with "Mater Nexus". She has also published four novels and an anthology about the history of drama. She debuted with poetry in the literary magazine Vagant in 1989, and with the novel "White. Quite." in 1993, for which she received Aschehoug's debutante prize.

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IN NORWAY

Teigen is an experienced lecturer and moderator in Norway and abroad, teaching on various writing courses at the drama departments at the Universities in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim.

 

She has worked at several great theaters and as a dramaturg and producer in the NRK drama department and held positions in Arts Council Norway, Dramatikerforbundet, Fond for lyd og bilde, etc.

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From 2010-2013 she was project manager for the DESK project, researching and performing plays written by female playwrights in the late 1800s. As director she primarily works with current playwrights, such as Sara Strindberg and her "Medealand" at Den Nationale Scene in Bergen, which won the Natt&Dag award for performance in 2014.

 

Teigen received the Munch research grant 2018 awarded by Oslo municipality, to write about Edvard Munch and Tulla Larsen. The novel "Tulla Larsen Mathilde Munch" was published in 2019.

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Teigen has a membership in Forfatterforeningen (The Norwegian Authors’ Union ), Norsk Sceneinstruktørforening (Norwegian Stage director's Association) and Dramatikerforbundet (The Writer’s Guild of Norway). 

INTERNATIONALLY

Teigens plays have been produced and performed on stages all over the world:

 

"The Time Without Books" premiered in 2018 at the National Theater of Uruguay, Teatro Solis in Montevideo, and was nominated for five Florencio awards and won the award for best ensemble. It has since played for five seasons at La Escena in Montevideo, recently in 2022.​

"Two Days in Rome" also premiered at La Escena in 2019 and won the Florencio Award for Best Ensemble the same year.

"Falling Apples" premiered at La Mama Theater in Melbourne, Australia in 2016.

"VOTE!" was performed in Cape Town, South Africa in 2015 after touring for several months in Norway.

"SQUARE" was played in 2015 at Teatro La Escena in Uruguay.​

"Mater Nexus"is translated into Italian, and was presented as a staged reading at the Compagnia di Arti e Mestieri in Pordenone in 2018. It has also played in Tokyo in Japanese directed by Teigen.

"The Archaeologists" was commissioned by Teater Ibsen, Norway in 2007, and also produced in Australia in 2013. It can be found as a research project in "Theater that means something", an academic volume on dramatic texts in Norway by Leirvåg/Fehr 2019.

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From 2009-2015, Teigen was president of Women Playwrights International and is now a senior advisor to the organization.​

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​Teigen is a member of the Writers' Association, the Directors' Association and the Dramatists' Association.