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Crispin Whittell (born 19 December 1969 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a British director and playwright.
He spent much of his early life in Africa. He was a member of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, and studied English at Cambridge University.
After leaving university Whittell was writer-in-residence at Nottingham Playhouse (1997).
He is perhaps best known for his play Darwin in Malibu which premiered at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 2003 in a production directed by John Dove. [1] It was shortlisted for the TMA Award for Best New Play. It was subsequently produced at Hampstead Theatre in London.
He is the writer of Happy Birthday, a film directed by Helen Mirren for Showtime. It starred Helen Mirren, John Goodman, David Hyde Pierce and Christopher Lloyd.
His play Happy Valley premiered at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre in 1997 in a production directed by Whittell.
Clever Dick, a farce about the American physicist Richard Feynman and The Manhattan Project, was produced at Hampstead Theatre in 2006 in a production directed by Whittell.
Whittell was then commissioned by Roger Rees to write Villa America about the American socialite couple Gerald and Sara Murphy, and their relationship with Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Villa America premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2007 in a production directed by Whittell.
Whittell is also the translator of Argentinian playwright-director Rafael Spregelburd’s play Stupidity (La Estupidez). Stupidity was developed at the National Theatre Studio as part of their Channels project. Richard Wolfe directed the English-language premiere for Theatre Conspiracy, in Vancouver, in 2007.
Other produced plays include Killing Him (Pleasance Edinburgh), and Party Tricks (Nottingham Playhouse) directed by Martin Clunes.
Whittell wrote and directed a short film, Hot Dog starring Tim McInnerny and Stephen Mangan.
He has also directed for the BBC (Twisted Tales) and Channel 4 (Coming Up).
In 2010 Whittell was commissioned to write a new version of A Christmas Carol for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. It opened in November 2010 in a production directed by Joe Dowling with Daniel Gerroll as Scrooge. The production has been remounted every year since.
The Primrose Path - Whittell's adaptation of Turgenev's novel Home of the Gentry - opened at the Guthrie Theater in May 2013 in a production directed by Roger Rees.
In April 2013 he directed the World Premiere of Adam Rapp's play The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois at South Coast Repertory Theatre. ,
Educating Rita is a stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell. It is a play for two actors set entirely in the office of an Open University tutor.
Donald Margulies is an American playwright and Professor (Adjunct) of English and Theater & Performance Studies at Yale University. In 2000, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of whom went on to achieve national and international reputations. Architectural changes have been made to the building over the years, the latest being in 1968 when a modern-style extension was added to the north of the theatre. In 1999 a trust was formed, joining the management of the Playhouse with that of the Everyman Theatre.
Nottingham Playhouse is a theatre in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England. It was first established as a repertory theatre in 1948 when it operated from a former cinema in Goldsmith Street. Directors during this period included Val May and Frank Dunlop. The current building opened in 1963.
Reece Dinsdale is an English actor and director of stage, film and television.
Between 1965 and 2010, the John Whiting Award was awarded annually to a British or Commonwealth playwright who, in the opinion of a consortium of UK theatres, showed a new and distinctive development in dramatic writing with particular relevance to contemporary society. The award was established in 1965 to commemorate John Whiting and his distinctive contribution to post-war British theatre. Until 2006, the selection was made by the drama panel of Arts Council England, and the play did not need to have been staged, which allowed plays produced on radio to be considered.
Louis Colaianni is an American voice, speech, dialect and text coach and director in the professional theatre, with specialisation in Shakespeare performance.
George Street Playhouse is a theatre company in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the city's Civic Square government and theatre district. It one of the state's preeminent professional theatres committed to the production of new and established plays.
Mark Lamos is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. He is now Artistic Director of the Westport Country Playhouse.
Rupert Goold is an English director who works primarily in theatre. He is the artistic director of the Almeida Theatre, and was the artistic director of Headlong Theatre Company (2005–2013).
Bernard Pomerance was an American playwright and poet whose best known work is the play The Elephant Man.
David Saint is an American artistic director at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, US.
Mark Brokaw is an American theatre director. He won the Drama Desk Award, Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Director of a Play for How I Learned to Drive.
The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures is a 2009 play by American playwright Tony Kushner. The title was inspired by George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism and Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Les Waters is a British theatre director. Waters was the Artistic Director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville. He has directed plays Off-Broadway and also at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Actors Theatre.
Darwin in Malibu is a play by British playwright and director, Crispin Whittell.
Robin Lefevre is a British theatre director. He has worked in Britain, Ireland, Australia, and the United States.
The Lovely Bones is a 2018 play based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Alice Sebold, adapted for the stage by Bryony Lavery.
William Armstrong, CBE was a British actor, theatre manager and director, associated for many years with the Liverpool Playhouse, where as director he was an important influence on young actors in his company, including, at various times, Robert Donat, Robert Flemyng, Rex Harrison, Michael Redgrave and Diana Wynyard.
He Who Gets Slapped is a play in four acts by Russian dramatist Leonid Andreyev; completed in August 1915 and first produced in that same year at the Moscow Art Theatre on October 27, 1915. Immensely popular with Russian audiences, the work received numerous stagings throughout the Russian speaking world in the two decades after its premiere, and then later enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1970s and 1980s in Russian theaters. The work is still part of the dramatic repertory in Russian speaking countries. While well-liked by the public, critical reaction to the work was initially negative in Russia. It was later reevaluated as a masterwork of Russian drama, and is regarded as Andreyev's finest achievement among his 25 plays.
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