With Manchester Sound: The Massacre starting rehearsals this week, we thought it was the perfect time to introduce you to the creative team behind the production…
Director Paul Jepson’s wide range of productions at many UK theatres includes, in the West End, the original production of Nick Moran’s Telstar, the story of maverick 1960s record producer Joe Meek, and, at the National Theatre, the first production of his own play Life After Life. He directed Neil Simon’s I Ought To Be In Pictures for us in spring 2010, which won a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for actor Kirsty Osmon. His production of Murray Lachlan Young’s new verse play The Incomers is currently touring.
Writer Polly Wiseman trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began her writing career as a member of The Royal Court Theatre Young Writer’s programme. She has since had her plays performed at many UK theatres, including This Rough Magic, a site-specific adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, performed on an oil rig moored off Brighton beach in front of an audience of 30,000! She has also had plays produced in Canada, Australia, Hungary and France. In 2012 her play The Power was shortlisted for the Nick Darke Award.
Designer Amanda Stoodley returns to the company after winning the prestigious Theatre Awards UK/Theatrical Management Association award for Best Design for Manchester Lines last year’s site-specific production. Amanda trained in theatre and performance design at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, having previously studied and worked in illustration, graphic and interior design.
Peter Rice is a freelance sound designer and engineer for theatre who has a long-standing association with the Royal Exchange Theatre. He was also part of the design team on Hard Times, our first site-specific production in Murrays’ Mills in 2011, which won the Best Design award in that year’s Manchester Theatre Awards.
Lighting Designer Chris Davey now lives in Manchester. He has designed extensively in Manchester at the Royal Exchange, the Manchester International Festival, The Lowry, throughout the UK at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and abroad at several international Opera Houses including Copenhagen, Oslo, and Sydney. Chris is looking forward to revisiting his acid house youth by working on Manchester Sound: The Massacre.
Timothy Bird is an Olivier-award winning and Tony-nominated show designer specialising in the integration of video projection into live work. He was a founder and creative director of the Knifedge agency, which ran for over 10 years, and was dedicated to blending art with technology, in the service of storytelling and communication. He has however always gravitated back to the matter of theatre.
Movement Director Lucy Hind has been a member of Slung Low, which specialises in performance for audiences outside conventional theatre spaces, for six years. They have made work for The Almeida, The Barbican, The Lowry, and The Liverpool Everyman. She has worked at many prestigious British theatres and also choreographed the infamous panto at the Chipping Norton Theatre for two years. Lucy also has a long term collaboration with dancer David Toole, they are currently touring their award winning Extraordinary”:http://contactmcr.com/whats-on/1184-david-toole-lucy-hind-extraordinary/ at Contact Theatre later this month. Lucy joined the team of choreographers on the Paralympics Opening Ceremony last year, choreographing over 3500 performers in her biggest show to date.
Assistant Director Rebecca Taylor studied at The University of Salford before training with Chickenshed in inclusive theatre management and completing a PGC at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in Directing Text. Directing credits include The Beauty Manifesto (The Lowry), Believe, The Gallery, and Forgotten (Cotton Shed Theatre Company, Rossendale), Flag (24:7 Theatre Festival, Manchester and Studio Salford) and Bite Nite, Alice in Wonderland, and Animal Farm (Altrincham Garrick Playhouse). She is currently working as Assistant Director on Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!”:https://www.octagonbolton.co.uk/145/Cant-Pay-Wont-Pay/508 at the Bolton Octagon.
Manchester Sound: The Massacre runs from Sat 8 Jun – Sat 6 Jul 2013. You can book tickets online or from Cornerhouse Box Office on 0161 200 1500.