Ubu Roi is a play by French writer Alfred Jarry, then 23 years old. It was first performed in Paris in 1896, by Aurélien Lugné-Poe's Théâtre de l'Œuvre at the Nouveau-Théâtre. The production's single public performance baffled and offended audiences with its unruliness and obscenity. Considered to be a wild, bizarre and comic play, significant for the way it overturns cultural rules, norms and conventions, it is seen by 20th- and 21st-century scholars to have opened the door for what became known as modernism in the 20th century, and as a precursor to Dadaism, Surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd.
The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, not-for-profit producing theatre in Waterloo, London, England. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Theatre. In 1871 it was rebuilt and reopened as the Royal Victoria Palace. It was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 and formally named the Royal Victoria Hall, although by that time it was already known as the "Old Vic". In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian Baylis, assumed management and began a series of Shakespeare productions in 1914. The building was damaged in 1940 during air raids and it became a Grade II* listed building in 1951 after it reopened.
The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre in St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster, London. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by the architect W. G. R. Sprague with an exterior in the classical style and an interior in the Rococo style.
Glyn Maxwell is a British poet, playwright, novelist, librettist, and lecturer.
The Almeida Theatre opened in 1980, is a 325-seat producing house with an international reputation, which takes its name from the street on which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama. Successful plays are often transferred to West End theatres.
Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington is a British actor, director and writer. Together with director Michael Bogdanov, he founded the English Shakespeare Company in 1986 and was its Joint Artistic Director until 1992. He has written ten books, directed in the UK, US, Romania and Japan, and is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is popularly known as Moff Jerjerrod in the original Star Wars trilogy film Return of the Jedi.
The Young Vic Theatre is a performing arts venue located on The Cut, near the South Bank, in the London Borough of Lambeth.
Defiant Theatre was a Chicago-based theatre company founded in 1993 by a group of students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which includes Nick Offerman. The eclectic troupe specialized in productions that emphasized inventive stagecraft, perverse and controversial topics, and skillful stage combat. While the company is highly regarded for original plays such as Action Movie: The Play and Godbaby, Defiant Theatre received notable attention for productions of plays by Caryl Churchill, Alfred Jarry, Sarah Kane, and William Shakespeare. Chicago Magazine named Defiant the "Best Experimental Theatre" in their August 1999 Best of Chicago issue. The company disbanded in 2004.
Simon Stephens is an English playwright and Professor of Scriptwriting at Manchester Metropolitan University. Having taught on the Young Writers' Programme at the Royal Court Theatre for many years, he is now an Artistic Associate at the Lyric Hammersmith. He is the inaugural Associate Playwright of Steep Theatre Company, Chicago, where four of his plays, Harper Regan,Motortown, Wastwater, and Birdland had their U.S. premieres. His writing is widely performed throughout Europe and, along with Dennis Kelly and Martin Crimp, he is one of the most performed English-language writers in Germany.
Dundee Repertory Theatre, better known simply as the Dundee Rep, is a theatre and arts company in the city of Dundee, Scotland. It operates as both a producing house - staging at least six of its own productions each year, and a receiving house - hosting work from visiting companies throughout Scotland and the United Kingdom including drama, musicals, contemporary & classical dance, children's theatre, comedy, jazz and opera. It is home to the Dundee Rep Ensemble, Scotland's only full-time company of actors, as well as Scotland's principal contemporary dance company, Scottish Dance Theatre. ‘’'The Rep'’’ building is located in Tay Square at the centre of the city’s "cultural quarter" in the West End.
David John Threlfall is an English stage, film and television actor and director. He is best known for playing Frank Gallagher in Channel 4's series Shameless. He has also directed several episodes of the show. In April 2014, he portrayed comedian Tommy Cooper in a television film entitled Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This. In 2014, he starred alongside Jude Law in the thriller Black Sea. In 2022 he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance in the Martin McDonagh play Hangmen.
David Greig is a Scottish playwright and theatre director. His work has been performed at many of the major theatres in Britain, including the Traverse Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Royal National Theatre, Royal Lyceum Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and been produced around the world.
Cheek by Jowl is an international theatre company founded in the United Kingdom by director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod in 1981. Donnellan and Ormerod are Cheek by Jowl's artistic directors and together direct and design all of Cheek by Jowl's productions. The company's recent productions include an Italian-language version of Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, Russian-language productions of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle, an English-language production of The Winter's Tale and a French-language production of Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Cheek by Jowl is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation and an Associate Company of the Barbican Centre, London.
Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (RMTC) is Canada's oldest English-language regional theatre. It was founded in 1958 by John Hirsch and Tom Hendry as an amalgamation of the Winnipeg Little Theatre and Theatre 77. The following is a chronological list of the Mainstage, Warehouse, and Regional Tour productions that have been staged since its inception.
La Jolla Playhouse is an American not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. It was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer.
The Canadian Stage Company is based in Toronto, and is Canada's third-largest not-for-profit contemporary theatre company. Founded in 1987 with the merger of CentreStage and Toronto Free Theatre, Canadian Stage is dedicated to programming international contemporary theatre and to developing and producing Canadian works.
Ramin Gray is a theatre director of Iranian (Muslim) and British (Jewish) heritage.
The North Wall Arts Centre is a performing arts centre in Oxford, owned by St Edward's School and shared with the city. It houses a 200-seat theatre, plus a rehearsal space, dance studio and a visual art gallery. The arts centre hosts touring theatre companies, musicians and other public events, as well as events by the school, with the aim to provide facilities and arts events both for St Edward's students and for the public at large.
Massimo Popolizio is an Italian actor and voice actor.
The Bridge Theatre is a commercial theatre near Tower Bridge in London that opened in October 2017. It was developed by Nick Starr and Nicholas Hytner as the home of the London Theatre Company, which they founded following their tenancy as executive director and artistic director, respectively, at the National Theatre.
