The Birmingham Stage Company was founded by the Actor/Manager Neal Foster in 1992, with Sir Derek Jacobi and Paul Scofield CH as patrons. It presents productions both on its home stage at The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham and touring throughout the United Kingdom and internationally, most recently Delhi, Sydney and Dubai. Box Office receipts account for 100% of the company's income.
An actor is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής (hupokritḗs), literally "one who answers". The actor's interpretation of their role—the art of acting—pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is "playing themselves", as in some forms of experimental performance art.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom's 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi) were home to an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. It is bordered by Haryana on three sides and by Uttar Pradesh to the east. The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million, the second-highest in India after Mumbai, while the whole NCT's population was about 16.8 million. Delhi's urban area is now considered to extend beyond the NCT boundaries and include the neighboring satellite cities of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Sonipat, Ghaziabad and Noida in an area now called Central National Capital Region (CNCR) and had an estimated 2016 population of over 26 million people, making it the world's third-largest urban area according to United Nations. As of 2016, recent estimates of the metro economy of its urban area have ranked Delhi either the most or second-most productive metro area of India. Delhi is the second-wealthiest city in India after Mumbai and is home to 18 billionaires and 23,000 millionaires. Delhi ranks fifth among the Indian states and union territories in human development index. Delhi has the second-highest GDP per capita in India.
Although the company has staged productions of plays by American authors such as Tennessee Williams, David Mamet and Arthur Miller, it has concentrated much of its work on collaborating with Britain's top living writers, including David Walliams, David Almond, Michael Morpurgo, Philip Pullman, Terry Deary, and has also enjoyed great success with its productions of Roald Dahl stories such as Fantastic Mr Fox, George's Marvellous Medicine, The Witches and James and the Giant Peach.
Thomas Lanier Williams III, known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway 70s plays: The Duck Variations,Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His plays Race and The Penitent, respectively, opened on Broadway in 2009 and previewed off-Broadway in 2017.
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright, essayist, and a controversial figure in the twentieth-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A View from the Bridge. He wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on The Misfits (1961). The drama Death of a Salesman has been numbered on the short list of finest American plays in the 20th century.
The company is strongly associated with the world stage premieres of Horrible Histories including Terrible Tudors, Vile Victorians, Ruthless Romans, Awful Egyptians, Groovy Greeks, Incredible Invaders, Frightful First World War, Woeful Second World War, Wicked Warwick, Horrible Christmas and its record-breaking production of Barmy Britain - Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4, which is the longest running children's show in West End history.
Horrible Histories is an educational entertainment franchise encompassing many media including books, magazines, audio books, stage shows, TV shows, and more.
The company has staged several world premieres including Collision by Dominic Leyton, Bridges and Harmonies by Oren Lavie and The Dice House by Paul Lucas.
Oren Lavie is an Israeli songwriter, author, theatre and video director. His music video for "Her Morning Elegance" earned a 2009 Grammy Award nomination for "Best Short Form Music Video" and has become a YouTube hit with over 32 million views to date.
The Dice House is a black comedy by Paul Lucas, first staged in June 2001 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. Inspired by Luke Rhinehart's The Dice Man, it explores the nature and limitations of free will.
Actors that have worked with the company include Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Amanda Donohoe, Corin Redgrave, Diana Coupland, Stephen Mangan, Eva Pope, Barry Stanton and Honor Blackman.
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow is an English actor, musician, writer, and theatre director.
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in popular films between the 1970s and 1990s, including American Graffiti, Jaws, Stand by Me, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Goodbye Girl, Stakeout, Always, What About Bob? and Mr. Holland's Opus.
Amanda Donohoe is an English actress. She first came to attention as a 16-year-old living with pop singer Adam Ant, appearing in the music videos for the Adam and the Ants singles "Antmusic" (1980) and "Stand and Deliver" (1981) during their four-year relationship. She later moved to the United States, where she appeared in films and on television series, including a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress-winning performance during her two years (1990–92) as C.J. Lamb on the NBC drama series L.A. Law. Other television roles include Natasha Wylde on the British soap opera Emmerdale (2009–10). She has had numerous stage roles, including Yelena in Uncle Vanya.
