MERLE HENSEL (Designer)
THEATRE INCLUDES: Protest Song (National); Macbeth (NTS/Lincoln Centre/Broadway); Green Snake (National Theatre of China); Shun-Kin (Theatre de Complicite); 27, The Wheel, Glasgow Girls (National Theatre of Scotland); The Shawl, Parallel Elektra (Young Vic); The Girls of Slender Means (Stellar Quines); Diener Zweier Herren (Schlosstheatre Vienna); Ippolit (Sophiensaele, Berlin/Schauspielhaus Zürich/Münchner Kammerspiele); Der Verlorene (Sophiensaele, Belin); Kupsch (Deutsches Theatre, Göttingen).
OPERA INCLUDES: Maria Stuarda (Vereinigte Bühnen, Mönchengladbach/Krefeld); Der Vetter Aus Dingsda (Oper Graz); Lunatics (Kunstfest Weimar); Münchausen, Herr Der Lugen (Neuköllner Oper, Berlin).
DANCE INCLUDES: Sun, Political Mother (Hofesh Schecter); Lovesong (Frantic Assembly); James Son of James, The Bull, The Flowerbed (Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre); Justitia, Park (Jasmin Vardimon Dance Company); Human Shadows (Underground7/Place Prize).
FILM INCLUDES: Moriturite Te Salutant, Baby.
NICK POWELL (Composer & Sound Designer)
FOR THE ROYAL COURT: The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas, Collaboration (Open Court), Talk Show (Open Court Weekly Rep), Narrative, Get Santa! (co-creator), The Vertical Hour, The Priory, Relocated.
AS COMPOSER/SOUND DESIGNER, OTHER THEATRE INCLUDES: Bank On It (Theatre Rites); Othello (National); A Life of Galileo, Richard III, Dunsinane, The Drunks, God in Ruins (RSC); ’Tis Pity She’s A Whore (Cheek By Jowl);The Danton Affair (Stadsteatern, Gothenburg); 27, The Wheel, The Wonderful World of Dissocia (National Theatre of Scotland); Dunsinane (NTS/RSC/UK tour); Lord of the Flies, The Crucible (Regent’s Park); Falstaff, Urtain, Marat-Sade (Spanish National Theatre); Paradise (Rhur Triennale/Theatre Rites); Penumbra, Tito Andronico (Animalario, Madrid); Panic (Improbable); The Family Reunion (Donmar); Bonheur (Comedie Française); Realism (National Theatre of Scotland/Edinburgh International Festival); The Wolves in the Walls (National Theatre of Scotland/Improbable).
AS SOUND DESIGNER, THEATRE INCLUDES: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies (RSC).
AWARDS INCLUDE: Animalario Award for Best Musical Composition for Scenic Arts Premios Max (Urtain).
Nick also writes music extensively for TV & film. He is half of OSKAR, who have released two albums and produced installations for the V&A and CCA, as well as written live soundtracks for Prada in Milan.
SASKIA REEVES (She)
FOR THE ROYAL COURT: The Woman Before, King Lear, Ice Cream.
OTHER THEATRE INCLUDES: Hello & Goodbye (Trafalgar Studios); A Disappearing Number (Complicite); Orpheus Descending (Donmar); Darker Face of Earth (National); Much Ado About Nothing, Man of Mode, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cheek By Jowl); Playhouse Creatures (Old Vic); Sweet Panic, Smelling a Rat (Hampstead); A Woman Killed with Kindness, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Virtuoso (RSC); Separation (Hampstead/Comedy); Twelfth Night (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Measure for Measure (Young Vic); Metamorphosis (Mermaid); Infidelities (Lyric); The Attractions (Soho Poly).
TELEVISION INCLUDES: From There to Here, NTSF:SF:SUV, Vera, One Night, The Sisters, Luther, Wallander, Canoe Man, Red Riding 1983, Afterlife, Christmas Carol, Plotlands, Island at War, In My Defence, Antonia & Jane, Children Crossing, Metamorphosis.
FILM INCLUDES: The Cycling Project, Turks & Caicos, Mind Scape, Nymphomaniac, Page 8, Me & Orson Welles, The Tesseract, Heart, Different for Girls, Butterfly Kiss, I.D., Traps, The Bridge, Close My Eyes, December Bride.
DANNY WEBB (He)
FOR THE ROYAL COURT: Circle Mirror Transformation, The Witness, Chicken Soup With Barley, Piano Forte, Trade, Blue Bird, Search & Destroy, Serious Money (& Broadway), Carnival War A Go Hot.
OTHER THEATRE INCLUDES: 13, The Gardens of England, As I Lay Dying, Murderers (National); Blasted, Progress (Lyric, Hammersmith);The Ditch (Hightide);The Philanthropist (Donmar);The Green Man (Plymouth Drum/Bush); Richard III (Crucible/Tour);Art, Popcorn, Death & the Maiden (West End); Goldhawk Road, The Nest, California Dog Fight (Bush); Dead Funny (Hampstead/West End); Back up the Hearse (Hampstead);The Pool of Bethesda (Orange Tree); Hamlet (Old Vic); Night Must Fall (Greenwich).
TELEVISION INCLUDES: Lightfields, Above Suspicion, Endeavour, Sherlock, Death In Paradise, Being Human, Tucker, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Hustle, Landgirls, The Bill, Trinity, Britannia High, Casualty, Most Sincerely, New Tricks, Lark Rise to Candleford, Honest, Bloodlines, Miss Marple, The Bill, The Rise & Fall of Rome, Doctor Who, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Nostradamus, Totally Frank, Lewis, Heartbeat, A Touch of Frost, Silent Witness, Waking the Dead, My Family, Uncle Adolf, Murder in Suburbia, Dogma, Pepys, Life Begins, Murder Squad, Henry VIII, Cutting It, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Torch, Outside the Rules, Shackleton, McCready & Daughter, Take Me, The Knock, Harbour Lights, Dalziel & Pascoe, Frenchman’ Creek, Venus Hunters, The Jump, Out Of Hours, 2.4 Children, The Cleopatra Files, Disaster at the Mall, King Of Chaos, A Perfect State, True Tilda, Sharman, Murder Most Horrid, Mrs Hartley & the Growth Centre, Our Friends In The North, Cardiac Arrest, A Woman’ Guide To Adultery, Comics, Head Hunters, Poirot, Tales of Sherwood Forest, Intimate Contact.
FILM INCLUDES: A Little Chaos, Iron Clad 2, Locke, Hummingbird, The Arbor, Visiting Hours, The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, Valkyrie, The Harvester, The Aryan Couple, Stealing Lives, The Upside of Anger, Family Business, Shiner, In The Name Of Love, Still Crazy, Love & Death On Long Island, True Blue, Alien III, Robin Hood, Henry V, Defence of the Realm, The Kid & the Green Baize Vampire, The Year of the Quiet Sun, The Unapproachable, No Exit.
THE ENGLISH STAGE COMPANYAT THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE
‘For me the theatre is really a religion or way of life. You must decide what you feel the world is about and what you want to say about it, so that everything in the theatre you work in is saying the same thing … A theatre must have a recognisable attitude. It will have one, whether you like it or not.’
George Devine, first artistic director of the English Stage Company: notes for an unwritten book.
photo: Stephen Cummiskey
As Britain’ leading national company dedicated to new work, the Royal Court Theatre produces new plays of the highest quality, working with writers from all backgrounds, and addressing the problems and possibilities of our time.
“The Royal Court has been at the centre of British cultural life for the past 50 years, an engine room for new writing and constantly transforming the theatrical culture.” Stephen Daldry
Since its foundation in 1956, the Royal Court has presented premieres by almost every leading contemporary British playwright, from John Osborne’ Look Back in Anger to Caryl Churchill’ A Number and Tom Stoppard’ Rock ‘n’ Roll. Just some of the other writers to have chosen the Royal Court to premiere their work include Edward Albee, John Arden, Richard Bean, Samuel Beckett, Edward Bond, Leo Butler, Jez Butterworth, Martin Crimp, Ariel Dorfman, Stella Feehily, Christopher Hampton, David Hare, Eugène Ionesco, Ann Jellicoe, Terry Johnson, Sarah Kane, David Mamet, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, Joe Penhall, Lucy Prebble, Mark Ravenhill, Simon Stephens, Wole Soyinka, Polly Stenham, David Storey, Debbie Tucker Green, Arnold Wesker and Roy Williams.
“It is risky to miss a production there.” Financial Times
In addition to its full-scale productions, the Royal Court also facilitates international work at a grass-roots level, developing exchanges which bring young writers to Britain and sending British writers, actors and directors to work with artists around the world. The research and play development arm of the Royal Court Theatre, The Studio, finds the most exciting and diverse range of new voices in the UK. The Studio runs play-writing groups including the Young Writers Programme, Critical Mass for Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers and the biennial Young Writers Festival. For further information, go to www.royalcourttheatre.com/playwriting/the-studio.