Sandis Runge

Born: 9 May 1997

Sandis Runge grew up in Riga and Kalngale. He graduated from Riga Central Humanities Secondary School in 2016, where he also took his first steps in theatre, performing with the Spogulis Theatre Studio under the direction of Irēna Bauma. In 2017, he was admitted to the Dramatic Theatre Acting programme at the Latvian Academy of Culture, led by Indra Roga and Mihails Gruzdovs, graduating in 2021.

“Sandis matured through the rich and cunning role of Dostoevsky’s Porfiry—a character in which he genuinely seemed to have grown old and ill. This was followed by the complete opposite: the young, lyrical, and sensitive Johannes in Victoria. His ability to focus on the details of a character’s inner life and to analyse the essence of what is happening is highly valuable. Give him freedom, and he will take over the entire stage. He has an extraordinary love for text and the spoken word.

Sandis possesses remarkable stage presence and magnetism. His characters draw the audience in, inviting them to follow their inner lives, whether in leading, emotionally explosive roles (Demons. After Dostoevsky, We, Rock, Sex and the USSR) or in almost wordless observer roles (The Word, When We Dead Awaken).

“With elegantly Mephistophelian irresistibility, Sandis Runge’s Pyotr Verkhovensky manipulates his companions, planting ideas in their minds—a devilish tempter. Runge’s Verkhovensky dances and spins faster and faster, like a spinning top wound up by an invisible hand, wearing a jester’s cap with bells, a cunning fool in the court of these young, idle revolutionaries.”
(Kitija Balcare, “Lulled by Evil”, LSM.lv, 31 December 2022. Review of the production Demons. After Dostoevsky.)