Theater Director and Composer Was 71

Claire van Kampen, a theater director, composer and wife of actor Mark Rylance, died Saturday morning. She was 71.

Van Kampen died in Kassel, Germany, “surrounded by her family” following a battle with cancer, Rylance and her daughter Juliet shared in a statement, per The Guardian. Saturday was also her husband’s 65th birthday.

“We thank her for imbuing our lives with her magic, music, laughter and love,” the family’s statement read. “Ring the bell, sound the trumpets reverie, something is done, something is beginning. One of the great wise ones has passed.”

Born on Nov. 3, 1953, in London, England, van Kampen went on to study music theory and piano, specializing in the performance of 20th-century music, at the Royal College of Music in London.

She began her professional career in theater in 1986 with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She joined the Royal National Theatre the following year.

Sam Shepard’s True West (2000) was credited as her first Broadway score. Her other credits included Boeing-Boeing (2008), La Bête (2010), Twelfth Night (2013), Richard III (2013) and Farinelli and the King (2017), which all starred Rylance. She also wrote the latter, which was nominated for a Tony Award in 2018.

Throughout her career, van Kampen also served as an artistic associate at Shakespeare’s Globe from 1996 to 2006, a musical consultant and resident composer to director Dominic Dromgoole from 2007 to 2015 and a creative associate of the Old Vic Theatre in London.

Van Kampen was previously married to architect Christopher van Kampen. They welcomed daughters Juliet and Nataasha, the latter of whom died at age 28 in 2012.