Kneehigh Theatre returns to Stratford-upon-Avon to premiere new adaptation of Don John in RSC's Courtyard Theatre
14 October 2008
Cornwall based Kneehigh Theatre returns to Stratford-upon-Avon with Don John, a radical re-working of the Don Giovanni, Casanova and Don Juan stories updated to 1970s England.
Renowned for their distinctive physical, musical and visually arresting style, Kneehigh’s last visit to Stratford was with a specially commissioned interpretation of Cymbeline which was a sell-out during the RSC’s Complete Works Festival in 2006. The company is currently enjoying a successful run of Brief Encounter in the West End.
Presented in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company and supported by Bristol Old Vic, it will be performed in the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre in Stratford from 12 December 08 to 10 January 09 followed by a major UK tour. Don John promises to be a festive and witty production and will play in repertoire with Romeo and Juliet over the Christmas period.
Emma Rice, Kneehigh’s Artistic Director is setting the production in 1978 – ‘the winter of discontent’, and using Mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni as the core narrative. ‘What’s interesting,’ says Emma, ‘is that Mozart’s opera trips along merrily and the music is so gorgeous, but it belies some of the terrible things that happen in the story.’
On her reasons for setting the play in the late 1970s, Emma said: ‘I really wanted to put it in a world that is relevant to us and that we can almost reach out and touch. I also knew I wanted it to be very English. It’s a fantastic decade to set it in because the music is really split between quite sentimental stuff (Three Times a Lady was in the charts that year) and soul music – all about love and romance – next to punk which was all about resistance and anger.’
‘It was a really interesting time politically too – the year before Thatcher was voted in.’
The story revolves around the dangerous, naughty and irresistible Don John, played by Gisli Örn Gardarsson, whose claim to fame is that he has slept with over 2,000 women.
The cast includes: Stu Barker, Nina Dogg Filippusdottir, Carl Grose, Craig Johnson, Patrycja Kujawska, Dominic Lawton, Dave Mynne, Gisli Örn Gardarsson, Ian Ross, Mike Shepherd, Alex Vann and Mary Woodvine.
Joining the director and adaptor Emma Rice on the artistic team are: Anna Maria Murphy (words and poems), Stu Barker (composer and musical director), Vicki Mortimer (designer), Malcolm Rippeth (lighting designer) and Simon Baker (sound designer).
The production will be developed and rehearsed at Kneehigh’s home base in Cornwall:
‘Cornwall is the base and the heart of where the process happens,’ says Emma. ‘We’ve got the most beautiful barns on the south coast of Cornwall in a village called Gorran Haven. We have no caretakers, we do all the cooking and cleaning. The theatre makers do all the work - cut our own wood, make our own fires.
‘It has a remarkable magic. We spend an awful lot of time together as there is nothing else to do – we end up working very long hours because it doesn’t feel like work, and that informs the process. We work very much in layers, so everyday we’ll do some dance, some movement and work on some characters and as I always see things as a big jigsaw, we go back after broad brush strokes and layer in the detail later. In many ways that is what makes us different from other theatre companies. The words are the last thing - they are the sprinkle on top of the cake, whereas most theatres start with the words and work from there.’
Further information
Kneehigh Theatre in association with The Royal Shakespeare Company
Supported by Bristol Old Vic
Don John
Adapted and directed by Emma Rice
12 December 08 – 10 January 09
Press Night: Thursday 18 December, 7pm
Box Office 0844 800 1110 www.rsc.org.uk
For further information please contact Nada Zakula in the RSC Press Office on 01789 412622 or 07831 766086 or nada.zakula@rsc.org.uk
For press ticket enquiries please contact Dean Asker on 01789 412660 or dean.asker@rsc.org.uk
Tour Press Contact: Amanda Adams 0117 9494901 or aadams@bristol-old-vic.co.uk
A photograph is currently available from www.epo-online.com. Production photographs will be available from Monday 15 December.
Biographies
Simon Baker
Sound Designer
Simon’s most recent work with Kneehigh is Brief Encounter. He has worked for many theatre companies including the RSC, Royal Court and NT where he was sound supervisor. In 1999 he joined Autograph Sound Recording Ltd. NT designs: Closer (NT, West End and Broadway), King Lear, Othello, Blue Remembered Hills, The Day I Stood Still and The Duchess of Malfi. For Autograph: associate sound designer on the London productions of The Witches of Eastwick, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (also Broadway) and Mary Poppins (all with Andrew Bruce) and, more recently, Spamalot (for ACME). Also, designs for The Caretaker, Feelgood, Closer to Heaven, 125th Street, The Play What I Wrote (West End, tours and Broadway), Cats (tour), On Your Toes (with Terry Jardine), Jailhouse Rock, Rebecca, Heroes, Ducktastic, Boeing Boeing,The Lord of the Rings (Toronto and London) and I Am Shakespeare (tour and Chichester). Awards: 2002 International Sound Designer of the Year (Entertainment Design Magazine) and 2006 Live Design International Award for The Lord of the Rings creative team.
Stu Barker
Composer and Musical Director
Shows as Composer and Musical Director include: Don John, Brief Encounter, A Matter of Life and Death, Nights at the Circus, Tristan & Yseult, The Bacchae, The Wooden Frock, Pandora’s Box, Roger Salmon, The Red Shoes and The Itch. Other theatre includes Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare’s Globe; The Odyssey and Philip Pullman’s Aladdin for Bristol Old Vic; Clown, Cloudland and The Stones for Travelling Light and productions for Welfare State International, Horse and Bamboo, Pentabus and Contact Theatre.
Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir
Performer
Nina was born in Iceland, and spent three years in Norway, before being accepted into the Icelandic Academy of the Arts, graduating with a BA degree in acting in 2001. She co-founded Vesturport in 2001 and has travelled throughout Europe with its productions winning multiple awards. She played Juliet in Vesturport’s Romeo and Juliet in London, Marie in Woyzeck at the Barbican, Grete in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in 2006, Gretchen in Faust at the Young Vic and Recklinghausen in Germany in 2007 (both with music and lyrics composed by Nick Cave). Her films include: Children and Parents, The Girls directed by Ragnar Bragason, Richard Curtis’ The Girl in the Café and Stella Runs for Office.
Carl Grose
Performer
Carl has performed in many Kneehigh shows including Don John, Cymbeline, Blast!The King of Prussia, The Riot, Pandora's Box, Quick Silver (which he also wrote), Wagstaffe the Wind-up Boy and Nights At The Circus. Other writing credits for the company include Tristan & Yseult and The Bacchae (with Anna Maria Murphy). He has also written for BBC TV and Radio. He co-founded the Cornish company o-region, Carl is currently working on two new plays – Grand Guignol for Plymouth Theatre Royal and ‘49 Donkeys Hanged for the National Theatre Studio.
Craig Johnson
Performer
Craig has performed in many Kneehigh shows including Wolf, Fish Boy, Wild Jam, Quick Silver, Skulduggery, The Bacchae, Tristan & Yseult, Journey to the Centre of the Earth (which he also directed) Blast! and Cymbeline. Before joining Kneehigh Craig worked as a musician, puppeteer and performer in places ranging from New York City to the Shetland Islands. He has also directed shows for the Eden Project, and currently runs his own company, Squashbox Theatre, which performs in Cornish schools.
Patrycja Kujawska
Performer
Patrycja studied at the Academy of Music in Gdansk, graduating in violin. She was a guest performer at the City Theatre in Gdynia and sang in the Non-Cabaret of Maciej Nowak in the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre. She has performed with Dada von Bzdulow Theatre since 1994 and composed the music to Dada's performance The Doom of the People or My Liver Has No Sense. In 2000 she was awarded a Gdansk Theatre Scholarship from the City of Gdansk to create a recital of The Ninth Lover of Katarzyna Foster. She performed in Papugaj, choreographed by Tatiana Baganowa and in Avi Kaiser's Endstation - ZASPA. She played as a guest violinist with experimental psychedelic rock band Chlupot Mozgu and appeared on Magic Carpatian’s album “Water Dreams”. With Aurora Lubos she co-founded KLM Group and created Te Takie Te. For VDT Patrycja has made and toured Drop Dead Gorgeous (2001), Let The Mountains Lead You To Love (2003), Punch Drunk (2004), Broken Chords (2005), Fairy Tale (2006) and Test Run (2006). She was awarded a grant from Arts Council England to compose music inspired by French sculptor Sabrina Gruss (2007). Patrycja lives in Sheffield.
Dominic Lawton
Performer
Dominic studied performance writing and digital arts at Dartington College of Arts and graduated in 2006. He was a member of the National Youth Theatre for 6 years. Dominic worked on Hanging Around (2004) and also co-wrote the music to Antigone at Hell’s Mouth (2005), both collaborations between the National Youth Theatre and Kneehigh Theatre. His other work for Kneehigh includes A Matter of Life and Death and Cymbeline. Dominic is a singer, rapper and electronic musician. He co-founded Arkane, an alternative hip hop group based in London and was the front man for Gentlemen Rebels, a funk/hip hop band based in Bristol.
Anna Maria Murphy
Writer
Anna first started writing for theatre to avoid playing a dog in a Kneehigh Wild Walk. Writing for the company includes Don John, The Bacchae, The Red Shoes, Tristan & Yseult, Skulduggery, Doubtful Island, Ghost Nets, Women Who Threw the Day Away, Telling Tales, Wild Bride (The Shamans) and the film Flight. She has also written for Theatre Alibi, Platform 4, Brainstorm Films, The Eden Project, and several plays for Radio 4.
Dave Mynne
Performer
Dave has been an integral member of Kneehigh since it’s inception 25 years ago and has worked in many different guises. Dave has been a performer, a prop maker and tour booker. He is now Kneehigh’s graphic designer, responsible for designing all Kneehigh’s print, posters and programmes. Dave makes a long-awaited return to the stage in Kneehigh’s upcoming Don John.
Gísli Örn Gardarsson
Performer
As a Performer: Romeo in Romeo and Juliet at the Young Vic Theatre in London and in the West End; Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis at the Lyric Hammersmith. Previous productions for Kneehigh include: Walser in Nights at the Circus and Conductor 71 in Kneehigh´s A Matter of Life and Death.
As Director and Adaptor: Romeo and Juliet (co-director with Agnar Jón Egilsson)
Reykjavik City Theatre, Young Vic London, The Playhouse (West End) Recklinghausen, Stavanger, Tampere, Gdansk; Woyzeck Barbican Theatre London, Reykjavik City Theatre, Het Muziktheater Amsterdam, Ludwigshafen Germany, Salamanca Spain; Metamophosis by Franz Kafka (co-directed and adapted with David Farr) Lyric Hammersmith London and National Theatre of Iceland; Love the Musical (co-written with Vikingur Kristjánsson) Reykjavik City Theatre, S-Korea (March 08), Lyric Hammersmith (May 08).
Gísli is a co-founder of Vesturport and an Associate Director of the Young Vic Theatre.
Emma Rice
Director and Adaptor
Emma is the Artistic Director of Kneehigh and for them has directed Pandora’s Box (co-produced with Northern Stage), Wild Bride (The Shamans, Budapest), The Red Shoes, for which she won Best Director 2002 in the Barclays TMA Theatre Awards; The Wooden Frock (nominated for Best Touring Production 2004, TMA Theatre Awards); The Bacchae (winner of the TMA Best Touring Production 2005), Tristan & Yseult, Nights at the Circus (a Lyric Hammersmith production in association with Kneehigh Theatre), Cymbeline ( in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Complete Works Festival), A Matter of Life and Death (Olivier, National), Rapunzel, Brief Encounter (tour and West End) and Don John.
Malcolm Rippeth
Lighting Designer
Malcolm has worked with Kneehigh on Brief Encounter, Nights at the Circus, The Bacchae, Pandora’s Box and Antigone at Hell’s Mouth. Other theatre includes Hamlet (English Touring Theatre and West End); Monkey (Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre); Scuffer, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Homage to Catalonia (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Great Expectations, The Snow Queen (Northern Stage); Macbeth (York Theatre Royal); Foyer (Leicester Haymarket); Dealer’s Choice (Salisbury Playhouse); Black Cocktail (Edinburgh Festival); Little Sweet Thing (Eclipse Theatre) and Keepers of the Flame (RSC / Live Theatre). Dance and opera includes La Penumbra, La Nuit Intime, The Ball (balletLORENT), Who put Bella in the Wych Elm (Almeida Aldeburgh Opera) and The Philosophers’ Stone (Garsington Opera).
Ian Ross
Musician
Ian is a musician with ten years’ experience as a performer and composer. As trombonist for Bristol-based ska phenomenon Babyhead and the inimitable high tea lovelies The Zen Hussies, Ian has an extensive performance history ranging from New York Fashion Week to the Jazz World Stage at Glastonbury Festival. Ian also plays guitar with manouche collective Trio Bastoune. His work for Kneehigh includes Brief Encounter.
Mike Shepherd
Peformer
Mike started Kneehigh in 1980 and has worked almost exclusively for the company ever since. Other work includes directing and acting in The Riot for the National, Marat Sade (Bristol Old Vic) and Antigone at Hell’s Mouth for The National Youth Theatre. In the past few years he has toured with Kneehigh to China, Hungary, Syria, Lebanon, Norway, Denmark and as part of major world festivals in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Colombia and Brasil. He has recently appeared in The Red Shoes, The Wooden Frock, The Bacchae, Tristan & Yseult, A Matter of Life and Death, Cymbeline and Rapunzel.
Alex Vann
Musician/Performer
Alex previously worked as a musician in Kneehigh Theatre’s Tristan and Yseult (National Theatre/UK and international touring), Cymbeline, A Matter of Life and Death (National Theatre), Rapunzel ( UK tour and Braodway run) and Brief Encounter. He has worked a a musician in Fairgame’s Salaam, as a composer and msuican for Theatre Alibi’s The Swell, Animal Tails and The Freeze. Alex is also a musician and composer for Spiro, an accoustic fourpiece who has played at the Royal Festival Hall and The Barbican, toured internationally and released two albums. Spiro also recently composed the music to the BBC’s “Johnny Kingdom” series. Alex is also a songwriter and guitarist in the rock band Submarine.
Tour Schedule 2009
27 – 31 January
Northern Stage, Newcastle
Box Office 0191 230 515
www.northernstage.co.uk
3 – 7 February
Hall for Cornwall, Truro
Box Office 01872 262466
www.hallforcornwall.co.uk
10 – 14 February
Plymouth Theatre Royal
Box Office 01752 267222
www.theatreroyal.com
17 – 21 February
Birmingham Rep
Box Office 0121 2364455
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
24 – 28 February
Warwick Arts Centre
Box Office 024 7652 4524
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
3 – 7 March
The Lowry, Salford
Box Office 0870 787 5790
www.thelowry.com
10 -14 March
Hippodrome, Bristol
Box Office 0844 847 2325
www.bristolhippodrome.org.uk
17 – 28 March
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
Box Office 0113 213 7700
www.wyplayhouse.com
