Anna Gutto

Anna Gutto, or Anna Guttormsgaard is a Norwegian director, writer and artistic director living in Los Angeles and Oslo. Her career includes acting, writing, translating, directing and adaptations into English from Norwegian texts. Early career Anna Gutto started her dedication to acting and story-telling through the theater already as a child. Not letting herself be sidelined by the largest roles being for men, she spent her childhood years playing several male characters. Committed to a professional life in the theater, she went from school and community theater to the performing arts high school Hartvig Nissen in Oslo. She made her professional debut in 1997 when director Stein Winge, artistic director Svein Sturla Hungnes and set designer John-Kristian Alsaker chose her to play Solveig in Peer Gynt at the Riksteatret (The Norwegian State Theater) after fierce competition. She later received a two-year contract at "Teatret Vårt" in Molde, where she played roles such as Lady Anne in Richard III, Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew, Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice, and Maja in Prinsen og pryleguten. There, together with Carl Morten Amundsen, she also created the one-woman performance Fidel's Island for the 2000 Molde International Jazz Festival. She has worked with award-winning Scandinavian theater artists such as Bjørn Sundquist, Hilda Hellwiig, Yngve Sundvor, Sven Nordin, Jan Grønli, and Sossen Krogh, among others. During her time in Molde she was also artistic director for the independent production of The Lover by Harold Pinter. Worked with Jon Fosse Gutto's work has particularly pinpointed the development of translation and adaptation as an important part of cultural enhancement. Gutto was instrumental in bringing Norway’s most prominent contemporary playwright, Jon Fosse, to the United States. Fosse's plays have been staged all over the world, but it was not until 2004 with Anna's theater company Oslo Elsewhere's production of Night Sings Its Songs that the American audience experienced how this internationally renowned playwright has influenced modern theater.