Edda Björgvins - is a renowned versatile all around conformable artist, celebrated in many diverse topography of her wide range of artistic and creative prowess. Her work in the entertainment industry in Iceland has earned her widespread recognition and national acclaim as an accomplished actress, director, writer, lecturer and motivational speaker and for the last three decades she has been this country´s most beloved comedienne of stage, television, radio and films.

BIRTHPLACE & TRAINING
Born in Reykjavík Iceland 13. September 1952. Graduated from the The Hamrahlíð College [Menntaskólinn við Hamrahlíð] in Reykjavík 1972 with Bachelors Degree in Languages. Studied Philosophy at the Icelandic University 1973 and Roentgen Technology at the Polytechnic School of Reykjavík 1974. Studied drama for one year at the United Drama School [Leiklistarskóli Leikhúsanna] 1974-1975 and furthered her studies at the Icelandic State Drama School and The Icelandic Academy of Arts in Reykjavík from which she graduated with distinction in 1978 with Bachelor of Arts degree in Performing Arts.

DEBUT
Shortly after graduation Edda made her debut at the National Theatre in Reykjavík in Jökull Jakobssons´s drama “The Shoemakers Son the Bakers Daughter” praised by critics and audiences alike as one of the most individual and versatile actress of her generation. She soon turned out to be equally suited for broad comedy and serious drama, a talent which has furnished her with a career of deserved diversity as one of the most sought after talent in the business.

DRAMATIC THESPIAN TURNED COMEDIENNE
During her rather short spell as a star player in serious dramas at the beginning of her career on stage and television, as well as being a featured leading lady in several epic motion pictures, she addressed audiences during evening performances in the theatre with a variety of classical and contemporary parts, throwing in matenées of family and children shows, switching into her comedy gear after almost every evening performance, rushing to the nearest comedy club with her stand up routine. The demand for her services as a comedienne increased considerably during the first two years of her career, eventually turning her into a full time leading force on the comedy circuit in Iceland.

STYLE
Edda´s innovatory comedy approach has earned her a reputation as a comic genius and her inspired concept and stylishness emerged as a breaking point in order to convert the vogue of the comedy scene in this country in the late seventies and early eighties. The mere appearance of Eddas posture, rubber faced expressions, the sound of her voice characterizations, dialects and accents being her expertise, is enough to brake an audience up - and she can continue to do so as long as she chooses by just a pause in delivery, a twitch of the cheek, a raise of an eyebrow or flash of those lively eyes. She has hardly ever followed any recognized conventional norm or pattern in her comedy, almost a law unto herself, and can always be relied upon being absolutely unpredictable what describes the kind of tension an audience feels when she is up there on stage or screen and almost anything might happen as he goes into one of her endless manic improvisations and ferocious double-takes.

CAREER IN DIFFERENT MEDIUM
For over the last three decades Edda has also had her hands in innumerable productions for the stage, television, radio and film as a director, producer, playwright and writer of screen- and teleplays, as well as being one of the most sought after lecturer and motivational speaker in her field.

TELEVISION & RADIO
In the minds of three generations of Icelandic TV-viewers and radio listeners the name, personage and career of Edda Björgvins will definitely forever be associated with the RUV-TV-Icelandic State Broadcasting and Radio Services and Channel 2-TV where she has enjoyed the most reputable career with her vast offerings to in-numerous comedy programs, talk shows and airing of staged and filmed drama and comedies. She has starred in and created a variety of groundbreaking sitcoms for television and radio, in which she has also either had her hand in as a writer, director or producer.

The most prestigious program of its kind and the predominantly anticipated annual event on national television in Iceland. is “The New Years Eve Comedy Hour Variety Show” [Áramótaskaupið on RUV-TV-The Icelandic Broadcasting Television Service]. To be designated to join the elite players who appear on the show is considered one of the ultimate honor bestowed up on any performing artist, a program which for years has been associated with the name of Edda Björgvins to which her generous contribution as a comedienne, director and writer on regular bases spans almost 30 years now with 25 airings of the show in question to her credit, serving the program with her prolific comedy and satirical sharp verbal wits, against whom no topical subject or celebrity personage is assailable, as long as it provides a potential material for her ingenious comedies, noted for her immaculate, almost uncanny impersonations of celebrities and politicians.

When the first independent radio and television station The Wave [Bylgjan] FM89.8 and Channel 2-TV [Stöd 2] where established in 1987 Edda Björgvins was soon to become one of their most frequently featured performing artist, designated as a creative consultant from day one and subsequently commissioned to co-write, co-produce and star in its first situation comedy “The Emergency Hothouse” [Heilsubaelid i Gervahverfi] one of Eddas most acclaimed creation on television and the first of its kind on National Television in this country, a surpassingly pleasing and much favored family entertainment which is still enjoying frequent reruns 20 years after its first broadcast, as a true classic and one of the most popular comedy shows ever made for television in this country.

But the most unconventional and pioneering situation comedy ever being transmitted to Icelandic, Swedish and Danish audiences, produced by RUV-TV, called “Ordinary Life” (Fastir liðir eins og venjulega), was Eddas creation, a sitcom she co-wrote about three “ordinary” families living in three detached homes in a middle class suburbia where everything is very ordinary apart form the “historical” fact the women are (and have always been) the stronger party, running the society and the lives of the weaker sex, i.e. the male population.

Her many radio projects include “Bibba & Halldor” (Halldor & Bibba á Bravallagötunni) a one of a kind sitcom, aired in only “five minute” long episodes, five days a week, which ran for six years with a television spin off which eventually was turned into a stage play.

Edda has also had her hand in the production of more than 200 radio commercials and 90 highly successful high-end television commercials as a star performer, director and copywriter.

WORK ON STAGE
Edda has starred in and carried out some memorable and ingenious portrayals of diverse character parts in scads of distinct productions for several distinguished theater companies, according to her availability, mostly on freelance bases, as Edda maintains an assiduous schedule as one of the most sought after individual in her field of expertise.

At the NT/The National Theater in Reykjavik she has appeared off and on over a period of 33 years under all five Artistic Directors of the institution and also at the Reykjavik Theater Company at the City Theater Reykjavik.

These two are the biggest subsidized repertory companies in Iceland and for a while Edda was the biggest draw for those theater due to her prodigious recognition as a comedienne. The most memorable character creations of Eddas acting career are probably Angela in the mono-play/tragicomedy “A Brilliant Divorce” by Geraldine Aron produced by her own company Arts & Education at the City Theater Reykjavík, which ran for three consecutive seasons 2004-2007; as the hapless aging actress Dotty Otley in the farce “Noises Off” at the NT; as Suzette in the French farce “Don´t Dress for Dinner” (which won her the “Cow-ard award”) enjoying a run for over four seasons at the City Theater, a record in the history of Icelandic Theater]; as Grandma in “Halldór in Hollywood” by Ólaf Haukur Símonarson about the Icelandic Nobel prize winner Halldor Laxness; and as the perpetum mobile of all her comic creations, Bibba, in the farce “Bibbas Posh and Slum” a spin-off, co-written by Edda from the popular radio and television sitcom “Bibba and Halldor” produced at the Icelandic Opera and as Trudy (and a gallery of 27 other characters) in the mono-play “The Search for Intelligent life in the universe” by Janet Wagner.

FILM
Edda has starred in several hit motion pictures and build up a unique range of dramatic parts as well as hysterically funny eccentric and much imitated characters like the bored but happy go lucky housewife Stella in Stella’s Vacation [aka Stella í Orlofi] and in its sequel “Stella Runs for Office [aka Stella í framboði], an Umbi-Film Production, undoubtedly the most popular Icelandic motion picture comedy ever made in this country, in which Edda gave one of her most noteworthy performance. She also had starring parts in “When the Raven Flies” a Hrafn Gunnlaugsson production; “Gold sand” an Agust Gudmundsson film, produced by Mannamyndir; “Pearls and Pigs” directed by Oscar Jonasson and the “Men coir Hekla,” also an Umbi-film productions.

WRITER
Edda has written farces, comedies, musicals, cabarets and revues to which she has contributed with her impeccable mosaic like, fast paced comedy dialogue, prose and rhyming poetry alike. She has a long list of critically acclaimed stage-plays and teleplays to her credit which have ranged from musicals like “Twelve o´Cock High” [“Láttu ekki deigan síga] which she co-wrote with Hlín Agnarsdóttir; “And then there were [ALA]none” a grim tragicomedy about the degradation of alcoholism, “Cecilia” [Sesselja í stjötíu ár] a play about the pioneer Sesselja Gudmundsdottir (who founded the first ecovillage in Europe, inhabited entirely by mentally challenged people), “Bibbas Slum and Posh,” and “Featuring the Audience” [Áhorfandinn í aðalhlutverki] a one act co-written with Gísli R. Jónsson the first of its kind, an important contribution to the development of interaction between performers and audience, emphasizing the importance of an audience in a live performance.

LECTURER, ENTERTAINER & MOTIVATION SPEAKER
Over the last decade training in the performing arts and the technique of communication have become an increasing part of Eddas work and taken more than fair share of her time from live theatre and television. She founded and ran the Drama Studio, a Prep School for those interested in pursuing a carrier in the dramatic arts, which has motivated and mentored innumerous comedy talents in this country, a studio project she decided to establish under the pressure of frequently being asked to give lectures on her acting/comic style and technique. Ever since Edda has been busy lecturing and training people in many different fields of professions in “performing” their various jobs in front of an “audience.”

INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION COMPANY
In 1987 Edda established her own production company The Comic Studio in collaboration with her husband and two fellow artists. For many years the company was a leading force in the independent and unsubsidized commercial theater-land in Reykjavík as well as dealing with television comedy, radio and TV commercial productions. Later the aforementioned company merged into another corporation of Edda Björgvins, the Comedians of the Revolving Stage Ltd,/ Grinarar Hringsviðsins Ltd, which has produced independently and in collaboration with TV-Channel 2, RUV-TV and Radio, the National Theater, the Reykjavik City Theater . For the last four years Edda has served as an artistic director, producer, writer and star performer for her own production company Arts & Education which has produced for theatre, television and film.

NOMINATIONS AND AWARDS
Edda Björgvins has been awarded a number of different awards during her career but not surprisingly for a comedy artist her awards have not been for her outstanding theatrical creations but her humanitarian work and contribution to public awareness of alcohol and substance abuse, the aid of the mentally challenged and her battle for improved etiquettes and stricter laws regarding traffic and public transport. It would also be justifiable to acknowledge in this context, despite the traditional treatment by artistic awarding academies of those who make people laugh, in 1997 Edda garnered the “Cow-ard-award” for her outstanding comedy performance in the French farce “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” a production which ran for nearly four consecutive seasons, a record in the history of Icelandic Theater, and also for her contribution to the artistic and financial success of Reykjavík City Theater Company,

DEXTEROUS CRAFTS[WO]MAN AND PIONEER IN DIVERSE FIELDS
Apart from being a celebrated artist Edda has been a founding members of many theater related groups and companies, for instance the pioneering alternative avant garde theater company the Public Theater (Alþyduleikhusid) in Reykjavík, a leading force on the fringe theater scene in Iceland between 1975-1990, as well as being one of the company’s most prominent artist; the SAL-Drama School in Reykjavik which offered a full time training for actors for a period over seven years, in order to answer a great need while the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs took an overlong time to prepare for a new State Dramatic Academy, and young aspiring actors had to go abroad to gain their training. Later she founded and ran her own Drama Studio, a Prep School for those interested in pursuing a carrier in the dramatic arts. Edda Björgvins has published books based on her comedic material, and is a member of the FIL, the Actors Association in Iceland, the FLI, The Association of stage television and film Directors in Iceland, BIL and The Association of Artists in Iceland.

SCRIPT DOCTOR
Although not known to the public Edda Björgvins has for years been an efficient and most sought after doctor of material written by others, like stage plays, screenplays, teleplays and radio plays. She is renowned amongst her peers for rendering her services as a heart surgeon to television- and theater companies in the healing process of productions that have been under the weather, and uncredited she has done the most remarkable last minute face lifting jobs and make-over on innumerable theater and television productions.

* Excerpts from “Icelandic Contemporaries” [Vaka Helgafell Publishing] and several different theatre bills.