Zoë Wanamaker is an American-British actress who has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. Wanamaker was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001 by Queen Elizabeth II. She has received numerous accolades including a Laurence Olivier Award and nominations for three BAFTA Awards, and four Tony Awards.
Dame Helen Mirren is an English actor. With a career spanning 60 years, she is the recipient of numerous accolades and is the only performer to have achieved both the American and the British Triple Crowns of Acting. Mirren has received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award for portraying the same character in The Audience, as well as three British Academy Television Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards for her role as DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect.
Les Misérables, colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz, is a sung-through musical with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, and a book by Schönberg and Boublil, based on the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The original French musical premiered in Paris in 1980 with direction by Robert Hossein. Its English-language adaptation, with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, produced by Cameron Mackintosh, has been running in London since October 1985, making it the longest-running musical in the West End and the second longest-running musical in the world after the original Off-Broadway run of The Fantasticks.
Laura Elizabeth Metcalf is an American actress. Metcalf is known for her complex and versatile roles across the stage and screen. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning more than four decades, including an Obie Award, two Tony Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 different shows in 322 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. As an event it "has done more to place Edinburgh in the forefront of world cities than anything else" according to historian and former chairman of the board, Michael Dale.
Niamh Cusack is an Irish actress. Born to a family with deep roots in the performing arts, Cusack has been involved as a performer since a young age. She has served with the UK's two leading theatre companies, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre and has performed in a long line of major stage productions since the mid-1980s. She has made numerous appearances on television including a long-running role as Dr. Kate Rowan in the UK series Heartbeat (1992–1995) which made her a household name and favourite. She has often worked as a voice actress on radio, and her film credits include a starring role in In Love with Alma Cogan (2011).
Sharon Delores Clarke is an English actress and singer. She is a three-time Olivier Award winner, and is best known to television audiences for her role as Lola Griffin in the medical drama Holby City, and as Grace O'Brien in Doctor Who. Clarke has also played lead roles in many West End musicals, and originated the roles of the Killer Queen in We Will Rock You and Oda Mae Brown in Ghost the Musical.
Marina Prior is an Australian soprano and actress with a career mainly in musical theatre. From 1990 to 1993, she starred as the original Christine Daaé in the Australian premiere of The Phantom of the Opera, opposite Anthony Warlow and later Rob Guest.
Carey Hannah Mulligan is an English actress. She has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award.
Leona Louise Lewis is a British singer, songwriter, actress, and model. Born and raised in Islington, Inner London, she later attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon. Lewis achieved national recognition when she won the third series of the television talent show The X Factor in 2006, winning a £1 million recording contract with Syco Music. Her winner's single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This", peaked at number one for four weeks on the UK Singles Chart and broke a world record by reaching 50,000 digital downloads within 30 minutes. In February 2007, Lewis signed a five-album contract in the United States with Clive Davis's record label, J Records.
Lois Arlene Smith is an American character actress whose career spans eight decades. She made her film debut in the 1955 drama film East of Eden, and later played supporting roles in a number of movies, including Five Easy Pieces (1970), Resurrection (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Falling Down (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Dead Man Walking (1995), Twister (1996), Minority Report (2002), The Nice Guys (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and The French Dispatch (2021).
Kerry Jane Ellis is an English actress and singer who is best known for her work in musical theatre and subsequent crossover into music. Born and raised in Suffolk, Ellis began performing at an early age before training at Laine Theatre Arts from the age of 16.
Margaret Constance "Maisie" Williams is an English actress. Williams made her acting debut in 2011 as Arya Stark, a lead character in the HBO epic medieval fantasy television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019). She gained recognition and critical praise for her work on the show, and received two Emmy Award nominations. Williams' other television appearances include Ashildr in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who (2015), starring in the British docudrama television film Cyberbully (2015), and in the British science-fiction teen thriller film iBoy (2017). She played the central character in the comedy action drama miniseries Two Weeks to Live (2020), and portrayed punk rock icon Jordan in Pistol (2022), a biopic about the Sex Pistols. Williams also voiced Cammie MacCloud in the American animated web series Gen:Lock (2019–2021).
National Theatre Live is an initiative operated by the Royal National Theatre in London. It broadcasts live, by satellite, performances of their productions to cinemas and arts centres around the world.
Michelle Terry is an Olivier Award–winning English actress and writer, known for her extensive work for Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, as well as her television work, notably writing and starring in the Sky One television series The Café. Terry took up the role of artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe in April 2018.
Lara Wollington is an English actress who was the voice of Lucy in the fourth season of 64 Zoo Lane and portrayed in West End theatre. She is best known for portraying the lead role of Matilda, in Matilda the Musical at London’s Cambridge Theatre.
Chloe Charlotte Hawthorn is an English actress. She is best known for playing the lead role of Matilda Wormwood in Matilda the Musical, a role she shared with Lucy-Mae Beacock, Hayley Canham, Elise Blake, Cristina Fray and Lara Wollington.
Spirit Young Performers Company is an organisation offering performing arts classes, based in London, notable for producing original musical numbers and releasing them online to YouTube to millions of online viewers. New performance videos are uploaded every week. The company was created in 2013 by Sophie Boyce and uses multi-camera crews to showcase its students performing.
D'Arcy Beth Carden is an American actress and comedian. She is best known for her portraying Janet in the NBC sitcom The Good Place (2016–2020), for which she earned a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and Greta Gill in the Prime series A League of Their Own (2022). She also played Gemma in Broad City (2014–2019) and Natalie Greer in the HBO dark comedy series Barry (2018–2023).
Tate Rosner McRae is a Canadian singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. At the age of thirteen, she gained prominence as the first Canadian finalist on the American reality TV show So You Think You Can Dance. McRae caught the attention of RCA Records in 2019 after many of her songs had gained traction online including her 2017 song "One Day", which became viral on YouTube preceding the release of her debut extended play (EP), All the Things I Never Said (2020). McRae soon gained wider recognition after her 2020 single "You Broke Me First" became an international hit, peaking at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2021, McRae was the youngest musician to be featured on the Forbes' 30 Under 30 list.
