Michael Boyd announces new members of the RSC creative ensemble and and re-affirms commitment to new writing
19 May 2008
Michael Boyd today announces key additions to his current RSC creative team alongside Chief Associate, Gregory Doran, Associate Director, Deborah Shaw, and Associate Designer, Tom Piper, as the Company plans the artistic programme for the next long-term acting ensemble from 2009 and the reopening in 2010 of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
David Farr will join the RSC full time from early 2009 and Rupert Goold from 2010, alongside his commitments to Headlong Theatre, though they will be closely involved in the development of the repertoire from now on. Roxana Silbert will join shortly, dividing her time between the RSC and as Artistic Director of Paines Plough. As RSC Associate Directors, they will participate fully in the life of the company, including the events and learning programmes, as well as directing plays.
David Farr comes from the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith and brings with him a breadth of knowledge and relationships with the country’s leading physical and devised theatre companies, as well as his own writing, directing and devising skills.
Rupert Goold is Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre. He has been a strong advocate of large scale classical and new work throughout his career, and draws influences from all art forms. His iconoclastic take on what contemporary theatre should be has shaken up audiences’ expectations with recent inventive stagings of Shakespeare.
Roxana Silbert is Artistic Director of Paines Plough Theatre Company. She has a forensic eye for contemporary dramaturgy and has championed many of our leading dramatists through their early plays. She recently led the RSC’s residency at Davidson College in the US, exploring an epic new play by Rona Munro.
Kathryn Hunter is an extraordinary performer and director who brings her uniquely intense ensemble theatre-making to the RSC. She was a key member of Complicite in its formative years, and is a powerhouse of theatrical invention. As Artistic Associate she will be an important contributor to the creative conversation within the company.
In another step towards repositioning New Work at the heart of the company, Boyd is also strengthening the RSC’s Literary Department.
Anthony Neilson becomes Literary Associate. A powerful leading figure in the development of contemporary writing, Anthony made his RSC debut writing and directing God in Ruins, and is renowned for tackling the darkest of subjects with the highest levels of invention and wit. He will work closely with Jeanie O’Hare, who has been the architect of the RSC’s renewed relationship with living writers and who takes up a new role as Company Dramaturg, working with writers and directors in the rehearsal room to help shape and draw together the strands of classical and contemporary work. They will shortly be joined by a new RSC/Warwick University International Writer in Residence who will take over from Adriano Shaplin later this summer.
Michael Boyd said: “The RSC is very fortunate that some of the most inspirational theatre-makers of their generation want to make the RSC their artistic home over the coming years and help to redefine ensemble theatre-making in this country.”
Further information
For more information, please contact:
Philippa Harland
RSC Head of Press
020 7845 0512
philippa.harland@rsc.org.uk
Notes to Editors
- David Farr, Rupert Goold, and Roxana Silbert become RSC Associate Directors
- Playwright, director and actor, Anthony Neilson, becomes Literary Associate
- Kathryn Hunter becomes Artistic Associate for the next long term ensemble
- The RSC's Literary Department is generously supported by THE DRUE HEINZ TRUST
- The RSC's New Work is generously supported by CHRISTOPHER SETON ABELE on behalf of the ARGOSY FOUNDATION
- The RSC Ensemble is generously supported by THE GATSBY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION and THE KOVNER FOUNDATION
Biographies
David Farr
David Farr is a writer and director. He took up the post of Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith in June 2005 where he was Joint Chief Executive with Executive Director Jessica Hepburn. At the Lyric, he adapted and directed The Magic Carpet, Ramayana, The Odyssey and the hugely successful new version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, which toured nationally and is now heading out on an international tour. He also directed the acclaimed devised piece Water with Filter Theatre and productions of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and, currently, The Birthday Party.
Prior to the Lyric, in 2005, he directed Tamburlaine starring Greg Hicks at the Barbican and his play The UN Inspector, a free adaptation of Gogol’s The Government Inspector, played at the National Theatre (Olivier).
For the RSC, David wrote and directed a new play Night of the Soul at The Pit in 2001. He subsequently directed the award-winning Coriolanus (starring Greg Hicks) (Swan, national tour, Old Vic Theatre) and Julius Caesar (Swan, national tour, Lyric Hammersmith).
David was Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre, London from 1995 to 1998 and was subsequently Joint Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic from 2002 – 2005 until he left to take over the Lyric. At Bristol, he directed seven shows including his versions of Paradise Lost and The Odyssey, and won the TMA Best Director Award for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
As a playwright, David’s work includes The Nativity at the Young Vic, The Danny Crowe Show at the Bush Theatre, Elton John’s Glasses at Watford Palace and West End, Crime and Punishment in Dalston at the Arcola, and Night of the Soul. He is published by Faber and Faber and his plays have been performed in the USA, Israel, and all over Europe. He writes regularly for the television series Spooks. His short comedies The Queen Must Die and Ruckus in the Garden have been part of NT Connections 2003 and 2007.
David has also worked at the Almeida Opera and the National Theatre of Czech Republic and Gavella Theatre Zagreb.
Rupert Goold
Rupert Goold is Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre. Productions for Headlong include The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Rough Crossings, Faustus, Restoration and Paradise Lost.
From 2002-5, Rupert was Artistic Director of the Royal and Derngate Theatres in Northampton where productions included Hamlet, Othello, Waiting for Godot, Insignificance, The Weir, Betrayal, Arcadia and Summer Lightning. He was Associate Artist at Salisbury Playhouse from 1996-7 during its reopening under Jonathan Church, where he directed The End of the Affair, Dancing at Lughnasa and the national tour of Travels With My Aunt. He was a Trainee Director under Sam Mendes at the Donmar Warehouse 1995-96.
His work as a freelance director includes The Glass Menagerie with Jessica Lange (West End); the world premiere of Speaking Like Magpies, a new play by Frank McGuinness, for the RSC; and a national and international tour of Scaramouche Jones with Pete Postlethwaite. In August 2006, he directed The Tempest with Patrick Stewart as Prospero, for the RSC. His most recent freelance project, Macbeth, with Patrick Stewart, transferred from Chichester Festival Theatre to the West End in 2007, and then to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Macbeth is currently playing on Broadway.
Rupert’s opera work includes Le Comte Ory (Garsington Opera) and L’Opera Seria, Gli Equivoci and Il Pomo D’Oro (Batignano).
Rupert won the 2007 Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and an Olivier Award for Best Director for Macbeth.
Anthony Neilson
Anthony’s plays include Welfare My Lovely (Traverse Theatre), Normal, (Edinburgh Festival, Finborough Arms), Penetrator (Edinburgh Festival, Finborough, Royal Court Upstairs), The Year of the Family (Finborough), Heredity (Royal Court), The Censor (Finborough, Royal Court) which won the Writers Guild Award for Best Fringe Play 1997. Also Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (Theatre Royal, Plymouth), Stitching (Traverse, The Bush, national tour) for which he was nominated Evening Standard ‘Most Promising Newcomer’ in 2002; The Lying Kind (Royal Court); The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Tron, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh and Theatre Royal, Plymouth).
In 2005 Anthony directed the UK premiere of the John Adams opera The Death of Klinghoffer (Edinburgh International Festival/Scottish Opera) for which he won a Herald Angel Award. In 2006 he wrote The Menu for the National Theatre and a second new play for Edinburgh International Festival 2006 called Realism which he directed at the Lyceum Theatre. In 2007 The Wonderful World of Dissocia went on national tour in Spring 2007 and opened Dominic Cooke’s first season at the Royal Court Downstairs. Anthony’s latest play, God in Ruins for the RSC, ran at Soho Theatre Christmas 2007.
His next production is Relocated which will be performed at the Royal Court in June 2008.
His feature film debut The Debt Collector, which he wrote and directed was released in 1999 (Dragon Pictures/Film 4) and won the Fipresci (International Critics) Award at the Troia International Film Festival in the same year.
Roxana Silbert
Roxana is Artistic Director of Paines Plough Theatre Company.
She was Literary Director at the Traverse Theatre (2001-2004) and Associate Director, Royal Court (1998-2000). In 1997, Roxana was Associate Director of West Yorkshire Playhouse where she directed Precious by Anna Reynolds.
Her theatre credits include: Being Norwegian (Paines Plough/Oran Mor), Between Wolf and Dog (Paines Plough/Oram Mor), Long Time Dead (Paines Plough/Plymouth Theatre Royal/ Traverse Theatre), Strawberries in January (Paines Plough for Traverse Theatre in Festival 2006), Long Time Dead (Paines Plough for Plymouth Theatre Royal) Under The Black Flag (Globe), After The End (Paines Plough for Traverse in Edinburgh Festival 2005, Bush, 59e59, international tour), Whistle in the Dark (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow), Blond Bombshells (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Property (RNT Studio); Damages (Bush Theatre); The Slab Boys, Still Life from The Slab Boys Trilogy (Traverse Theatre/national tour); The People Next Door (Traverse Theatre/Theatre Royal, Stratford East); Iron (Traverse Theatre/Royal Court); Brixton Stories (RSC); The Price (Octagon Theatre, Bolton); Top Girls, Translations (New Vic Theatre, Stoke); Cadillac Ranch (Soho Theatre); At the Table, Still Nothing, I Was So Lucky, Been So Long, Fairgame, Bazaar, Sweetheart (Royal Court); Mules (Royal Court/Clean Break Theatre Company national tour); Splash Hatch on the E (Donmar Warehouse); Write Away, Ice Station H.I.P.P.O (Channel 4 Sitcom Festival at Riverside Studios); Fast Show Live (Hammersmith Apollo/tour); The Treatment (Intercity Theatre, Festival, Florence).
Radio credits include: Hysteria by Terry Johnson, Billiards by Heinrich Boll, adapted by Claire Luckham, Japanese Gothic Tales by Georgia Pritchard, The Tall One by Claire Luckham, The Tape Recorded Highlights of a Humble Bee by Brendan O’Casey; The Good Father by Christian O’Reilly (all for BBC Radio 4); Brace Position by Rona Munro for BBC Radio Scotland.
Kathryn Hunter
Kathryn’s directing credits include: 448 Psychosis (LAMDA); The Birds (Lyttleton RNT); Destination (Volcano Theatre Company); Wiseguy Scapino (Theatre Clwyd); Everyman (Royal Shakespeare Company, BAM NY); Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (Almeida, Albery, Traverse); The Glory of Living (Royal Court), The Comedy of Errors (The Globe), Pericles (The Globe).
Her acting credits include: The Diver (Soho Theatre), Fragments (Young Vic, Bouffes du Nord & World Tour); The Bee (Soho Theatre); The Maids (Brighton Festival); Yerma (Arcola Theatre); Celestina (Birmingham, Edinburgh Festival); Whistling Psyche (Almeida Theatre); Richard III (The Globe); The Taming of the Shrew; Dona Rosita (Almeida); King Lear (Leicester Haymarket); Macbeth (Leicester Haymarket); Electra (Leicester Haymarket); Far Away (Bouffes du Nord, Paris); The Rose Tattoo, The Devils (Theatr Clywd); Live Like Pigs, The Recruiting Officer, Our Country’s Good (Royal Court Theatre); The Hypochondriac (Leicester Lyric and Haymarket); Women of Troy (Gate); Romeo and Juliet (Watermill); Spoonface Steinberg (Ambassadors, Washington); Mother Courage (Shared Experience, Ambassadors, Spoletto Festival, South Carolina); Pericles and The Visit (Time Out Award for Best Actress and Olivier Nomination for Best Actress (Royal National Theatre).
Theatre de Complicite work includes: Foe, Out of the House Walked A Man, The Visit (Royal National Theatre); Anything for a Quiet Life, Help, I am Alive! The Winter’s Tale.
Her film and television work includes: Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, All or Nothing, Wet and Dry, Orlando, Baby of Macon, Rome, Silent Witness, CS:Manhunt, Grushko, Maria’s Child.
