 | |
| Formation | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Type | Theatre group |
| Purpose | Ensemble theatre |
| Location | |
| Website | www |
Simple8 is a London-based theatre company formed in 2004 by professional actors, writers and directors. They aim to produce innovative ensemble theatre that is ecologically sustainable. [1] [2]
In 2006, Simple8 staged an adaptation of Les Enfants du Paradis . The Times gave it five stars and said that it was "A superb production and a new (newish) company possessing the skills, intelligence and dedication to create such a wonder". It was adapted by company members Dudley Hinton and Sebastian Armesto (Armesto also directed). [1] [3]
In 2008, Simple8 presented The Living Unknown Soldier about a soldier left an amnesiac at the end of the Great War. It was based on the book by historian Jean-Yves Le Naour. [4]
In 2011 the company adapted William Hogarth's engravings The Four Stages of Cruelty in collaboration with the playwright Adam Brace. [5] [6] [7]
In 2013 Simple8 staged productions of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Moby-Dick . [8] [9] [10] In a review of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for The Evening Standard , critic Fiona Montford wrote that "What Simple8 are most decidedly not doing is slavishly recreating the work onstage but rather spinning an increasingly Kafka-esque yarn that has a low-fi yet chilled atmosphere...The eight-strong cast throw themselves into writer/director Sebastian Armesto and Dudley Hinton's surreally-tinged nightmare with gusto, doubling roles, playing instruments and at one cherishable moment forming themselves into the inner mechanisms of a large municipal clock." [11]
In 2016 the company adapted Don't Sleep There Are Snakes by Dan Everett at the Park Theatre in London. [12] [13] Their 2018 production of E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India was well received by critics. [14] [15]
Produced by Strawberry Vale, Simple8's The Living Unknown Soldier was the first show at the Arcola Theatre in London to be powered by the venue's hydrogen fuel cell. [16] Peak power consumption for lighting was said to be 4.5 kW, or "up to 60 percent less than comparable lighting installations". [16] The set for their 2013 production of Moby Dick was built out of reclaimed materials. [17]
In 2013 Simple8 won the Off West End Theatre Ensemble Award for their productions of Moby Dick and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. [18] That same year the company also won the Peter Brook/Equity Ensemble Award. [19]
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.
Matthew Kelly is an English actor and presenter. Having been trained as a theatre actor, he first came to public prominence as a television presenter of ITV light entertainment shows such as Game for a Laugh, You Bet! and Stars in Their Eyes. In the 2000s he returned to acting, appearing in several West End productions, while also acting in some television roles.
Robert Wiene was a film director of the silent era of German cinema. He is particularly known for directing the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a succession of other expressionist films. Wiene also directed a variety of other films of varying styles and genres. Following the Nazi rise to power in Germany, Wiene, who was of Jewish descent, fled into exile.
Arcola Theatre is in the London Borough of Hackney. It presents plays, operas and musicals featuring established and emerging artists.
Moby Dick is a musical with a book by Robert Longden, and music and lyrics by Longden and Hereward Kaye, first staged in 1990. The plot follows the anarchic and nubile girls of St. Godley's Academy for Young Ladies who, determined to save the institution from bankruptcy, decide to stage Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel in the school's swimming pool. The musical is a mixture of high camp, music hall-style smut, and wild anachronism overflowing with double entendres; the lead role of headmistress/Captain Ahab is portrayed by a man in drag.
Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville that describes the voyage of the whaleship Pequod, led by Captain Ahab, who leads his crew on a hunt for the whale Moby Dick. There have been a number of adaptations of Moby-Dick in various media.
The Cabinet of Caligari is a 1962 American horror film by Roger Kay, starring Glynis Johns, Dan O'Herlihy, and Richard Davalos, and released by 20th Century Fox.
Sebastian Felipe Xavier Fernández-Garcia Armesto is a British film, television and theatre actor. He is the son of the historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto.
Samm-Art Williams is an American playwright and screenwriter, and a stage and film/TV actor and television producer. Much of his work concerns the African-American experience.
Thomas James Mison is an English film, television, and theatre actor, voice artist, and writer. He has had leading and supporting roles in a variety of British theatre, television, and radio productions, as well as independent and mainstream studio films and film shorts. He is best known for his starring role as Ichabod Crane on the Fox series Sleepy Hollow, which ran from September 2013 to March 2017. He played Fainall in the Donmar Warehouse's 2018 production of William Congreve's The Way of the World and also worked in Watchmen portraying the clones of Mr. Phillips and the Game Warden.
Alix Sophie Wilton Regan is an English actress known for her roles as Samantha Traynor in Mass Effect 3 and Aya in Assassin's Creed Origins.
Fiona Button is an English actress. She is best known for playing Rose Defoe in The Split.
Little Miss Sunshine is a musical adapted from the 2006 film of the same name, with music and lyrics by William Finn and book and direction by James Lapine. The musical premiered in San Diego, California at the Mandell Weiss Theater, La Jolla Playhouse on February 15, 2011 and began performances Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in October 2013. The musical opened Off West End at the Arcola Theatre in 2019.
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.
Offstage Theatre (UK) is "an enterprising young theatre company", based in Waltham Forest, London, run by Artistic Director and Producer Cressida Brown. The company's first piece was Home, written by Gbolahan Obisesan, Cressida Brown and Emily Randall in response to the demolition of the housing estate Beaumont Road. The site-responsive piece functioned as "a valuable document of a people and a place just moments before an irrevocable change". "The project, which overwhelmed the creative team with its success" established Offstage as a Site-specific theatre company.
Gordon Stanley is an American stage actor.
Femi Elufowoju jrListen is a Nigerian theatre and opera director. After Alton Kumalo's Temba Theatre Company, he is the second theatre director of African descent to establish a national touring company in the UK. Elufowoju's stage work has been seen across most key flagship theatres in the UK, and has collaborated extensively with notable creatives within the film, television and radio sectors.
Les Enfants terribles is a danced chamber opera for four voices and three pianos, composed in 1996 by Philip Glass, to a French-language libretto by the composer, in collaboration with the American choreographer Susan Marshall, after Jean Cocteau's eponymous novel published in 1929 and Jean-Pierre Melville's 1950 film. Commissioned by the "Steps" dance festival organized by the Pour-cent culturel Migros in several Swiss cities, this is the last part of a trilogy in homage to the French poet after Orphée (1993) and La Belle et la Bête (1994). The world premiere of the work took place on 18 May 1996 in Zug conducted by Karen Kamensek.
Andrew Pearson is a British filmmaker, actor, and producer based in the North of England. He was a member of the National Youth Music Theatre before training at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Currently, Andrew Pearson is the artistic director of the Ensemble 52 Theatre Company (E52) based in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire England.
Emma Zia D'Arcy is an English actor, known for their roles in the BBC drama Wanderlust (2018), the Amazon Prime series Truth Seekers (2020), and the HBO fantasy series House of the Dragon (2022–), the latter of which earned them critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award nomination.
