Sir Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. Stoppard was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn is a British theatre director. He has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed dramas for the stage, like Macbeth, as well as opera and musicals, such as Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985).
Sir David Hare is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director. Best known for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hoursin 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Readerin 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.
Travesties is a 1974 play by Tom Stoppard. The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the Russian Revolution, all of whom were living in Zürich at that time.
Lee Hall is an English playwright, television writer, screenwriter, and lyricist. He is best known for writing the screenplay for the film Billy Elliot (2000) and the book and lyrics for its adaptation as a stage musical of the same name. In addition, he wrote the play The Pitmen Painters (2007), and the screenplay for the film Rocketman (2019).
Martin Faranan McDonagh is an Irish playwright, screenwriter, producer, and director. Born and brought up in London, he is the son of Irish parents. He started his career in the Royal National Theatre with The Pillowman in 2003. He has since written many plays produced on the West End and on Broadway including The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996), The Cripple of Inishmaan (1996), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001), A Behanding in Spokane (2010), and Hangmen (2015). He has received four Tony Award nominations, and five Laurence Olivier Award nominations, the latter of which he received three awards for The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Pillowman, and Hangmen.
Roger Rees was a Welsh actor and director, widely known for his stage work. He won an Olivier Award and a Tony Award for his performance as the lead in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. He also received Obie Awards for his role in The End of the Day and as co-director of Peter and the Starcatcher. Rees was posthumously inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in November 2015.
Sir Matthew Christopher Bourne is an English choreographer whose work includes contemporary dance and dance theatre.
Dame Harriet Mary Walter is a British actress. Her film appearances include Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Governess (1998), Villa des Roses (2002), Atonement (2007), The Young Victoria (2009), A Royal Affair (2012), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Denial (2016), The Sense of an Ending (2017), Rocketman (2019) and Ridley Scott's The Last Duel (2021). On television she starred as Natalie Chandler in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK (2009–14), as Lady Prudence Shackleton in four episodes of Downton Abbey (2013–15), in the miniseries London Spy (2015), as Clementine Churchill in The Crown (2016), in Patrick Melrose (2018), as Lady Caroline Collingwood in Succession (2018–2021) and Dasha in the third season of Killing Eve (2020). Her role in Succession earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2020.
Michael Howell Blakemore OBE, AO is an Australian actor, writer and theatre director who has also made a handful of films. A former Associate Director of the National Theatre, in 2000 he became the only individual to win Tony Awards for best Director of a Play and Musical in the same year for Copenhagen and Kiss Me, Kate.
Richard John Nelson is an American playwright and librettist. He wrote the books for the Tony Award-winning musicals James Joyce's The Dead and the Broadway version of Chess, as well as the critically acclaimed play cycle The Rhinebeck Panorama.
The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 22 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization is best known for its annual awards for excellence in theater.
La Bête (1991) is a comedy by American playwright, David Hirson. Written in rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter, the Molière-inspired story, set in 17th-century France, pits dignified, stuffy Elomire, the head of the royal court-sponsored theatre troupe, against the foppish, frivolous street entertainer Valere, whom the troupe's patron, Prince Conti, wishes them to bring aboard. Despite Elomire's violent objections, the company is forced to perform one of Valere's own plays, which results in dramatic changes to the future of Elomire, Valere, and the company itself.
John Newport Caird is an English stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was for many years a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and is the principal guest director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm (Dramaten).
Frank Vincent Ferrante is an American stage actor, comedian and director known for his inspired improvisation and audience interactive comedy. His lengthy, acclaimed stage runs as the legendary American comedian Groucho Marx in the Arthur Marx/Robert Fisher play Groucho: A Life in Revue, and his own internationally touring An Evening With Groucho, established his portrayal as one of the world's top historic solo shows alongside Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight. Ferrante was nominated for the Laurence Oliver Award for 'Comedy Performance of the Year' for the title role in Groucho: A Life in Revue in London's West End in 1987. Prior, he won New York's 1987 Theatre World Award for 'Outstanding Debut' for the same role.
Hugh Vanstone is one of the UK’s foremost lighting designers. He has lit more than 160 productions, working in all spheres of live performance lighting, as well as exhibitions and architectural projects. His career has taken him all over the world and his work has been recognised with many awards, including a Tony Award for his lighting of Matilda the Musical, and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design in 1999, 2001 and 2004.
Privates on Parade: A Play with Songs in Two Acts is a 1977 farce by English playwright Peter Nichols, with music by Denis King.
Shockheaded Peter is a 1998 musical using the popular German children's book Struwwelpeter (1845) by Heinrich Hoffmann as its basis.
Michael Hayden is an actor who has appeared both on the stage and on television.
Nick Stafford is a British playwright and writer. He is best known for writing the stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse, which garnered him a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play in 2008, and the Tony Award for Best Play in 2011.
