Theatre director and composer Claire van Kampen dies of cancer aged 71

Theatre director and composer Claire van Kampen has died of cancer aged 71 , according to a statement from her family.

Her husband, the actor and playwright Mark Rylance, and her daughter Juliet described van Kampen as one of the “funniest, wickedest, most inspiring women we have ever known,” the statement said.

Van Kampen died “surrounded by family” in Germany on her husband’s 65th birthday.

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“We thank her for imbuing our lives with her magic, music, laughter, and love,” the family said.

“Ring the bell, sound the trumpets reverie, something is done, something is beginning. One of the great wise ones has passed.”

Van Kampen has been nominated for five Tony Awards, including a nomination for best play in 2018 for her show Farinelli and the King. She also scored a number of Broadway productions including True West in 2000.

But van Kampen is likely best known for her work in the United Kingdom, where she was involved in numerous productions of William Shakespeare’s plays. She began her theatre career in 1986 with the Royal Shakespeare Company, according to her biography on the Globe Theatre’s website.

Van Kampen was the first woman to serve as a musical director for both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, her biography said.

She met Rylance at the Royal National Theatre in 1987, where they were both working on a production of The Wandering Jew. The couple told The New Yorker in 2013 that it was Rylance who took an interest in her on the first day of their rehearsal.

He told the magazine that he “very much admired her walk”, but it took a bit longer for him to gain van Kampen’s attention.

“By about the third month, somebody pointed out that this young man was hanging around the piano rather a lot, and maybe he had other motives than learning his song,” van Kampen said.

They went on to work together in several productions after that, including Hamlet, As You Like It and The Tempest. The couple married two years after they first met in a ceremony in Oxfordshire, England.

Rylance has also starred in several films, winning the Oscar for best supporting actor in 2016 for his role in Bridge of Spies alongside actor Tom Hanks.

He became a stepfather to van Kampen’s two daughters, Juliet and Natasha. Natasha van Kampen died in 2012 from a brain haemorrhage during a flight from New York to London, according to People magazine.