He appeared in the all-star cast of King Lear at The Old Vic in 2013 and in Love’s Labours Lost for the 20th anniversary of Northern Broadsides in 2011. He learnt the Trapeze to play the protagonist of Circus Britannica in 2011 (The Bike Shed Theatre). He played Tom Sawyer in James Graham’s Huck (Southwalk Playhouse and National Tour) and received an Offie nomination for Outstanding Male Performance. Other award-winning and nominated work includes Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen (Lincoln Center, New York), A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller (New York Tower Productions) and the Broadway transfer of Prophecy (New End Theatre).
On television he has appeared on Knight Spell and the Name of God (Fairmont/HBO) and Here and Now (CBS).
CREATIVE TEAM
Ron Hutchinson
Writer & Co-Director
Writer Ron Hutchinson is an Emmy award-winning screenwriter for Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, currently based in Los Angeles. He has received four other Emmy nominations. After working at several jobs, including carpet fitter, fish gutter and Social Security Department fraud investigator, he wrote his first television play Twelve Off The Belt for the BBC. A series of television plays and series then followed, including two series of Bird of Prey starring the late Richard Griffiths and Connie, starring Stephanie Beecham.
Ron’s first stage play, Says I Says He, was produced at the Sheffield Crucible, Royal Court Theatre and Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles. It led to his becoming Writer In Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company and won him the George Devine Award. Other plays that have been produced internationally include Moonlight and Magnolias at The Goodman Theatre, Chicago, The Tricycle and the Manhattan Theatre Club which was nominated for the 2004 Joseph Jefferson Award for New Work in Chicago and won a New York Critic’s Circle Comedy Award. West End productions include Steven Daldry’s revival of Rat in the Skull (Olivier Award nomination) and Beau Brummel at the Haymarket, Leicester Square. For the Royal National Theatre he adapted Mikhail Bulgakov’s Flight and Carl Zuckmayer’s The Captain of Kopenick, both performed on the Olivier stage.
After moving to Los Angeles he wrote and produced extensively for American cable and network companies including HBO, ABC, NBC, CBS, Lifetime and Showtime. He has recently resumed writing for BBC radio and his series of five short plays, Hollywood Endings starring Kathleen Turner, is due for transmission on BBC Radio 4 in 2014. He has also taught screenwriting at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
Victoria Fischer
Original Story
Victoria trained at The Oxford School of Drama. Her first play Finding Evita, based on her journey to Buenos Aires to learn Tango, debuted at the Face to Face Solo Theatre Festival in London in 2012. She developed this play with Ron Hutchinson; Flying Into Daylight is the result of that collaboration.
Other theatre credits include roles in Backbeat at Citizens Theatre, Glasgow; Dead on Her Feet at The North Wall, Oxford and Arcola Theatre in London and a UK Tour as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet with the Young Shakespeare Company.
Max Roberts
Co-Director
Max is the Artistic Director and a founding member of Live Theatre. His directing credits include new plays by some of the finest writers from the North East including: CP Taylor, Tom Hadaway, Alan Plater, Phil Woods, Julia Darling, Shelagh Stephenson, Peter Straughan, Lee Hall and Michael Chaplin.
For Live Theatre’s 40th anniversary season in 2013 Max directed Tyne by Michael Chaplin, Wet House by Paddy Campbell and a revival of Lee Hall’s Cooking with Elvis, a play he first directed for Live Theatre 16 years ago. In 2014, Max directed a series of rehearsed readings of screenplays by Lee Hall (and Simon Beaufoy) as well as Live Theatre’s new production Good Timin’ and Wet House which returned to Live Theatre before going on a National Tour.
Julian Rowlands
Musical Composer & Performer
Julian Rowlands, one of Europe’s leading Tango musicians, is a bandoneonist, composer and arranger specialising in Tango, classical and contemporary music. Julian received his degree in music from Southampton University and studied bandoneon with the leading Argentinean player Victor Villena.
Julian is a member of Tango Siempre, and created the score for the Olivier Award nominated show Midnight Tango together with Ros Stephen and Jonathan Taylor of Tango Siempre. He performed in the show in the West End and on tour from 2011 to 2013.
He has appeared on BBC television’s Strictly Come Dancing, The One Show and Zingzillas, on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune, and at major concert and theatre venues in the UK and Europe such as the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal Opera House and the Phoenix and Aldwych Theatres.
Amir Giles
Choreographer
Amir Giles is a performer and choreographer, who trained at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. His experience spans performance, collaborative devising, movement direction and choreography for television, film, theatre and opera.
He has taught at The Royal Ballet School, The Royal College of Music, Bodyguard – The Musical, The Royal Ballet, for productions at the Royal Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall, and multiple major Tango schools in London and abroad. As a choreographer and movement director Amir has worked with Paramount Pictures, Boy George, Film4 and The Royal College of Music.
He has appeared in roles as a swing dancer in Marvel Comics’ Avenger’s sequel, as Señor Gomerez in ITV’s Mr Selfridge and in a collaboration with Strictly Come Dancing’s Nicole Cutler.
Gary McCann
Designer
Originally from County Armagh, Northern Ireland, Gary trained at Nottingham Trent University, and is now based in Greenwich, London.
His design credits for theatre and opera include: The Pitmen Painters (Live Theatre, National Theatre London, Volkstheater Vienna, Friedman Theatre Broadway, Bill Kenwright tour and Duchess Theatre), The Girl in the Yellow Dress (Live Theatre, Market Theatre Johannesburg, Stadttheater Stockholm, Baxter Theatre, Cape Town), The Barber of Seville, La Voix Humaine, L’Heure Espagnole (Nationale Reisopera, Holland), Die Fledermaus (Norwegian National Opera), The Flying Dutchman (Ekaterinburg State Opera, Russia), Three Days in May, Dangerous Corner (Bill Kenwright), 33 Variations (Volkstheater Vienna), Guys and Dolls (Theater Bielefeld, Germany), Fidelio (Garsington Opera), Cosi Fan Tutte (Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna), Norma (National Opera of Moldova), Imeneo (London Handel Festival), Faramondo (Göttingen Festspiele Germany), Owen Wingrave and La Pietra Del Paragone (Opera Trionfo, Amsterdam).
Current engagements include commissions for Vienna State Opera, Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico, Nationale Reisopera Holland, National Opera Bucharest, Dallas Opera and the Hobart Baroque Festival, Tazmania. His work has been exhibited at the V&A Museum in London twice – as part of the Collaborators and Transformation/Revelation exhibitions.
Malcolm Rippeth
Lighting Designer
Malcolm’s previous shows at Live Theatre include Keepers of the Flame, A Nightingale Sang in Eldon Square and Toast.
Other work includes: The Bloody Chamber (Northern Stage), Rapunzel (balletLORENT),