Michael Buffong

Last updated

Michael Buffong
Born1964 (age 57–58)
Islington, London, England
NationalityEnglish
OccupationTheatre director

Michael Buffong (born 1964) is an English theatre director and the Artistic Director of Talawa Theatre Company. His work is characterised by reworking stage classics delivered to high degree of detail. [1] [2] [3] [4] Buffong has been described as "one of the most influential directors of classic plays over the last two decades", [5] in addition to being named one of Creative Review 's 50 Creative Leaders. [6] In Spring 2019, Buffong was one of the judges of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. [7] [8]

Contents

Career

Buffong was born in Islington, London, in 1964. He attended a director's course at Theatre Royal Stratford East and was later appointed an assistant director there. Buffong then went on to work in television and film and his credits include Holby City , EastEnders , Admin, Placebo, Calais Rules, Doctors , Casualty and Comedy Shuffle (BBC), Hollyoaks (Lime Pictures), Feeling It (Eye2Eye) and Blazed (Channel 4). He has also written and directed the award-winning short film Simple! (Acapulco Film Festival). [9]

He has also been particularly associated with the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, where he has directed at least five plays. Buffong also directed Lenny Henry and Lashana Lynch in the Willy Russell play Educating Rita at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2015. [10] [11]

Buffong has been the artistic director Talawa Theatre Company since 2011. [12] [13] [14] With Talawa, Buffong has most recently directed Guys and Dolls , [15] [16] [17] King Lear , [2] [1] [18] All My Sons , [19] [3] Moon on a Rainbow Shawl , [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] God's Property, [25] The Serpent's Tooth [26] and Passing Wind. [12] [27] Buffong has directed Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's A Kind of People at Royal Court Theatre and will also direct the Talawa co-production with Park Theatre (London) of Archie Maddocks's A Place for We in early summer 2020. [28] [29]

Theatre Productions

Royal Exchange

His credits include: [30]

Related Research Articles

<i>Guys and Dolls</i> 1950 musical by Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling, and Abe Burrows

Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", which are two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, such as "Pick the Winner".

<i>All My Sons</i> Play by Arthur Miller

All My Sons is a three-act play written in 1946 by Arthur Miller. It opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1949, and ran for 328 performances. It was directed by Elia Kazan, produced by Kazan and Harold Clurman, and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. It starred Ed Begley, Beth Merrill, Arthur Kennedy, and Karl Malden and won both the Tony Award for Best Author and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play. The play was adapted for films in 1948 and 1987.

Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre is an English film, theatre, television and opera director.

Fraser Stuart Ayres is an English actor, best known for his role as Clint in the BBC comedy series The Smoking Room.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Warrington</span> British actor

Don Warrington MBE is a Trinidadian-born British actor. He is best known for playing Philip Smith in the ITV sitcom Rising Damp (1974–78), and Commissioner Selwyn Patterson in the BBC detective series Death in Paradise (2011–present).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Fearon</span> English actor

Raymond Fearon is an English actor. He played garage mechanic Nathan Harding on ITV's long-running soap opera Coronation Street and voiced the phoenix Fawkes in the Wizarding World film series Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Enoch</span> English actor (born 1988)

Alfred Lewis Enoch is an English actor, best known for playing Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter film series and Wes Gibbins in the ABC legal thriller television series How to Get Away with Murder.

Paulette Randall, MBE is a British theatre director of Jamaican descent. She was chair of the board of Clean Break Theatre Company in 2006–07, and is former artistic director of Talawa Theatre Company. She was the associate director for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.

Adrian Keith Noble is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.

Doña Croll is a Jamaican-born British actress. She is best known for her roles in British television soap opera playing Pearl McHugh in Channel 5's Family Affairs, Vera Corrigan in the BBC Vera Corrigan Doctors, and as Emerald Fox in EastEnders. She also played the regular role of nurse Adele Beckford in series 8 of Casualty.

Jonathan Kent CBE is an English theatre director and opera director. He is known as a director/producer alongside Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002.

Talawa Theatre Company is a Black British theatre company founded in 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Errol John</span>

Errol John was a Trinidad and Tobago actor and playwright who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1951.

Lucy Bailey is a British theatre director, known for productions such as Baby Doll at Britain's National Theatre and a notorious Titus Andronicus. Bailey founded the Gogmagogs theatre-music group (1995–2006) and was Artistic Director and joint founder of the Print Room theatre in West London (2010-2012). She has worked extensively with Bunny Christie and other leading stage designers, including her husband William Dudley.

Barrington John Reckord, known as Barry Reckord, was a Jamaican playwright, one of the earliest Caribbean writers to make a contribution to theatre in Britain. His brother was the actor and director Lloyd Reckord, with whom he sometimes worked.

<i>Moon on a Rainbow Shawl</i> 1958 play written by Errol John

Moon on a Rainbow Shawl is a 1957 play written by Trinidadian actor-playwright Errol John. Described as "ground-breaking" and "a breakthrough in Britain for black writing," the play has been produced and revived worldwide since its premiere at London's Royal Court Theatre.

Burt Caesar is a British actor, broadcaster and director for stage and television, who was born in St Kitts and migrated to England with his family as a child. His career has encompassed acting in Bond films, stage performances including in Shakespearian roles, and many plays for BBC Radio 4. Caesar regularly works as a director and is an artistic advisor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He is also a commentator on theatre and literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miltos Yerolemou</span> British actor

Miltos Yerolemou is a British actor best known for his role as Syrio Forel in the HBO fantasy TV series Game of Thrones.

Theresa Ikoko is a British playwright and screenwriter of Nigerian descent. Her play Girls, about three girls abducted by terrorists in northern Nigeria, won the Alfred Fagon Award and other awards.

Martina Laird is a Trinidadian actress, director and acting teacher.

References

  1. 1 2 Allfree, Claire (18 May 2016). "Don Warrington's King Lear is a heartbreaking tour de force" – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  2. 1 2 Hickling, Alfred (7 April 2016). "King Lear review – as close to definitive as can be". The Guardian .
  3. 1 2 Morley-Priestman, Anne (18 February 2015). "All My Sons (Tour) - 'Michael Buffong ratchets up the tension'". WhatsOnStage.
  4. ↑ Hickling, Alfred (8 February 2012). "Waiting for Godot – review". The Guardian.
  5. ↑ "Denis Lawson, Paulette Randall, Hossein Amini, Michael Buffong. Tricky, Jazz Morley, Sara Cox, Clive Anderson, Loose Ends - BBC Radio 4". BBC.
  6. ↑ "Creative Leaders 50". Creative Review. 2017.
  7. ↑ Bowie-Sell, Daisy (5 March 2019). "Jackie Sibblies Drury wins Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Fairview". WhatsOnStage.
  8. ↑ Bano, Tim (29 July 2020). "Michael Buffong interview". The Stage.
  9. ↑ "Profile | Michael Buffong". Chichester Festival Theatre. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  10. ↑ "All-black makeover for classic English tale".
  11. ↑ Brown, Mark (26 February 2015). "Lenny Henry to star in Educating Rita at Chichester". The Guardian.
  12. 1 2 "Who We Are".
  13. ↑ Wicker, Tom (28 March 2016). "Michael Buffong: 'Putting black actors on stage is the easy bit'". thestage.co.uk. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  14. ↑ Thorpe, Vanessa (24 October 2015). "After a century of black British theatre, actors still struggle to take centre stage". The Guardian.
  15. ↑ Gardner, Lyn (7 December 2017). "Guys and Dolls review – swaggering Harlem grit rocks the Broadway boat". The Guardian.
  16. ↑ Treneman, Ann (8 December 2017). "Theatre review: Guys and Dolls at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester". The Times.
  17. ↑ Brennan, Clare (10 December 2017). "Guys and Dolls review – larger than life, but with a core of grit". The Guardian.
  18. ↑ "King Lear Reviewed".
  19. ↑ Hickling, Alfred (2 October 2013). "All My Sons – review". The Guardian.
  20. ↑ Edmonds, Richard (21 February 2014). "Review: Moon on a Rainbow Shawl at Birmingham Repertory Theatre".
  21. ↑ Kellaway, Kate (18 March 2012). "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl; Can We Talk about This?; Shivered – review". The Observer .
  22. ↑ Belindal (18 March 2012). "Theatre Review: Moon on a Rainbow Shawl @ National Theatre". Londonist.
  23. ↑ Hitchings, Henry (15 March 2012). "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, National, SE1 - review". Evening Standard.
  24. ↑ Billington, Michael (15 March 2012). "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl – review". The Guardian.
  25. ↑ Evans, Lloyd (9 March 2013). "Aversion therapy". The Spectator.
  26. ↑ "The Serpent's Tooth - Exeunt Magazine". exeuntmagazine.com.
  27. ↑ Bosanquet, Theo (13 October 2011). "Talawa Appoints Michael Buffong as New Artistic Director". WhatsOnStage.
  28. ↑ Daniels, Nicholas Ephram Ryan (4 December 2019). "Cast announced for A Kind of People at the Royal Court". London Theatre Direct.
  29. ↑ "A Place for We" at Talawa.
  30. ↑ "Royal Exchange Production History". royalexchangetheatre.org.uk. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.