Alvis Hermanis was born in Riga in 1965. He graduated from the acting department at the Latvia Conservatory and was an actor on stage and screen throughout the 1980s. He first began directing in the early 1990s. Hermanis was named the Artistic Director of the Jaunais Rigas Teatris (the New Riga Theatre) in 1997 and under his leadership it became one of the most famous theatres in the world. His production of Nikolai Gogol's “The Inspector General” in 2002 brought him international renown. No less successful were productions of “Long Life” (a show about seven elderly people living in a communal apartment devised by Hermanis, which in Russia won the 2007 Golden Mask award for best foreign production); a dramatization of Tatyana Tolstaya's story “Sonya”; and “Sounds of Silence,” a show about a Simon and Garfunkel concert that was cancelled in Riga in 1968. All of these shows were performed at major European festivals. At the New Riga Theatre he also directed Vladimir Sorokin's “Ice,” as well as “Latvian Stories” and “Latvian Love,” two pieces that were devised by Hermanis and his company. He has worked in Germany at the Frankfurt and Cologne drama theatres. He staged two productions at the Zurich drama theatre: his own piece, “Fathers,” in 2007 and a dramatization of Fyodor Dostoevsky's “The Idiot” in 2008.

Alvis Hermanis is the recipient of numerous festival prizes and international awards, including the European Prize for New Theatrical Realities (2007) and, in Moscow, the Stanislavsky award (2008). Hermanis's production of “Shukhshin's Stories” for the Theatre of Nations marks his Russian directing debut.