LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST
EMILY BURNS - DIRECTOR
Emily is an Associate of the Bridge Theatre and the National Theatre.
She directed Vogue World, Jack Absolute Flies Again at the National Theatre, The Comeback at the Noël Coward Theatre, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, and has adapted Romeo and Juliet for film for the National Theatre. In 2023, she adapted Macbeth starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma for Wessex Grove, which is currently on tour to Liverpool, Edinburgh, London and Washington, D.C and will direct the forthcoming production of Dear Octopus at the National Theatre.
THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA
EMMA RICE - ADAPTOR AND DIRECTOR
Emma Rice is the Artistic Director of Wise Children, and an internationally respected theatre-maker and director. For Wise Children Emma has adapted and directed Blue Beard, The Little Matchgirl and Happier Tales, Wuthering Heights, Bagdad Cafe, Angela Carter’s Wise Children, Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and Romantics Anonymous.
As Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe: Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Little Matchgirl (and Other Happier Tales).
Emma worked for Kneehigh as an actor, director and Artistic Director, creating critically acclaimed productions including, but not limited to: The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, The Wild Bride, The Red Shoes, Cymbeline (in association with RSC), A Matter of Life and Death (in association with National Theatre), Brief Encounter (in association with David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers Productions), Don John (in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic), Wah! Wah! Girls (in association with Sadler’s Wells and Theatre Royal Stratford East for World Stages), and Steptoe and Son.
Emma received the Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre award at the 2019 UK Theatre Awards.
HANIF KUREISHI - CO-ADAPTOR
Hanif Kureishi is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. His father's family was displaced during the partition of India and Pakistan. Due to his mother being English, the family ended up in London. Hanif studied philosophy and achieved early success as a playwright. He collaborated with several London theatre companies.
Commissioned by Channel 4, he wrote the script for My Beautiful Laundrette, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The Buddha of Suburbia, his debut novel, was adapted into a television series, featuring a soundtrack by David Bowie. His book Intimacy sparked controversy due to its autobiographical nature, which Hanif denied. The film adaptation, Intimacy, based on his stories and the book, was released in 2001. For the screenplay of the film Venus, Hanif received another Oscar nomination. The film was directed by his close friend Roger Michell.
In 2008, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and in 2014, he sold his archive to the British Library. In December 2022, he suffered a serious fall in Rome, resulting in paralysis. After an extended stay in rehabilitation centres, he now resides at home in an adapted residence in London.
ENGLISH
SANAZ TOOSSI - PLAYWRIGHT
Sanaz Toossi is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, California.
Her plays include the critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning English (co-production Atlantic Theater Company/Roundabout Theatre Company) and Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons; Williamstown/Audible, released 2020).
She is currently under commission at Atlantic Theater Company (Launch commission; Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant), Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (American Revolutions Cycle).
She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow, a recipient of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, the 2022 recipient of The Horton Foote Award and, most recently, the 2023 recipient of the Best New American Play Obie Award.
Sanaz received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
DIYAN ZORA - DIRECTOR
Diyan is a British Iraqi theatre director and writer based in London. As winner of the 2021 Genesis Future Directors Award, Diyan directed Klippies by Jessica Sian at the Young Vic Theatre. Diyan recently formed part of the Bush Theatre's 2022 Emerging Writer's Group.
Theatre includes: Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles? (Chichester Festival Theatre), Tom Fool (Orange Tree Theatre), Klippies (Young Vic), Ms Y. (Young Vic), Consent (Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama), Lysistrata (Lyric Theatre Springboard), Gather Ye Rosebuds (Theatre503), Twelfth Night (Cockpit Theatre), Othello (Barons Court Theatre) and Sticks and Stones (RADA).
As Associate Director, Diyan’s credits include LOVE (National Theatre/European tour), Faith Hope and Charity (National Theatre) and The Ferryman (Gielgud Theatre).
As Assistant Director: Fireworks (Royal Court Theatre) and Evening at the Talkhouse (National Theatre).
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
BLANCHE MCINTYRE - DIRECTOR
Blanche McIntyre is an award-winning theatre director whose previous RSC credits include All’s Well That Ends Well, Titus Andronicus and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
Other theatre credits include: Twelfth Night: For One Night Only, Measure for Measure, Bartholomew Fair, The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare’s Globe), The House of Shades, Hymn, The Writer (Almeida Theatre), Botticelli in the Fire (Hampstead Theatre), Tartuffe (National Theatre), Arabian Nights (Bristol Old Vic), The Norman Conquests (Chichester Festival Theatre), Noises Off (Nottingham Playhouse), Welcome Home, Captain Fox! (Donmar Warehouse), The Oresteia (HOME, Manchester), Super High Resolution (Soho Theatre), Arcadia (English Touring Theatre), Women in Power, Tonight at 8:30, The Nutcracker (Nuffield Southampton Theatres), Ciphers (Out of Joint/ Bush Theatre/Exeter Northcott) The Birthday Party (Royal Exchange Theatre),The Seagull (Headlong/Nuffield Southampton Theatres/Derby Theatre), Accolade and Foxfinder (Finborough Theatre).
Opera credits include Tosca and The Marriage of Figaro (ETO).
KYOTO
JOE MURPHY & JOE ROBERTSON - PLAYWRIGHTS
Joe and Joe’s debut play, The Jungle, came from their seven months running a theatre, the Good Chance Dome, in the Calais refugee camp. It premiered at the Young Vic in 2017, before transferring to the West End, St. Ann’s Warehouse (New York), Curran (San Francisco) and Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington DC).
The play received universal acclaim, the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Theatre, and an Obie Award. In 2021, Good Chance embarked upon The Walk, an 8,000km festival across Europe with a 3m tall puppet of Little Amal, inspired by the character from The Jungle.
Their work with Good Chance brings people together through theatre and art to create surprising stories that spark new conversations and encourage action on complex urgent issues of our time, migration, climate crisis and polarisation, all with displaced artists centre-stage.
STEPHEN DALDRY – DIRECTOR
Stephen Daldry is an award-winning theatre, film and television director and producer.
He has directed theatre productions for the West End and Broadway, including Billy Elliot, The Inheritance and An Inspector Calls, winning multiple Olivier and Tony awards. His latest play Stranger Things: The First Shadow opened at the Phoenix Theatre in December 2023.
Stephen has directed 6 feature films which have all been nominated for major industry awards. Netflix’s The Crown, which he serves as Executive Producer, recently released the final season, with Stephen directing the last episode.
Stephen served as producer on the opening and closing ceremonies for the London 2012 Olympics and was Artistic Director on Vogue World London in 2023.
Stephen is the Chairman of refugee arts charity Good Chance and was the director of their award-winning production The Jungle. He serves on the board of The Perlman Performing Arts Center in New York.
JUSTIN MARTIN - DIRECTOR
Justin Martin is a multi-award-winning director working in theatre, film and television.
Most recently he co-directed Stranger Things: The First Shadow with Stephen Daldry, currently running at the Phoenix Theatre, which opened to critical acclaim. In 2023 he directed Jodie Comer in her Broadway and West End stage debut in Prima Facie by Suzie Miller. The sold-out award-winning production received rave reviews and 23 awards including the Olivier Award for Best New Play.
In 2021 Justin co-directed the critically acclaimed and BAFTA Award-winning film Together with Stephen Daldry starring James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan. More recently he directed all six episodes of David Ireland’s hit series The Lovers for Sky Atlantic, Sundance and AMC. His award-winning production of The Jungle (co-directed with Daldry) played a sell-out return season in New York and Washington DC following seasons in San Francisco, New York, the West End and at the Young Vic.
THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL
TINUKE CRAIG - DIRECTOR
For the RSC, Tinuke Craig has worked as an Assistant Director on Hamlet and All’s Well That Ends Well. This will be her RSC directing debut. She is the former Baylis Director at The Old Vic and an Artistic Associate at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Other directing credits include: Blue (English National Opera), Trouble in Butetown (Donmar Warehouse), Jitney (Headlong/Leeds Playhouse/The Old Vic), Last Easter (Orange Tree Theatre), Aisha (the black album) (The Old Vic), Crave (Chichester Festival Theatre), Hamlet (National Theatre), Cinderella (Lyric Hammersmith), Vassa (Almeida Theatre), The Color Purple (Leicester Curve, Birmingham Hippodrome), random/generations (Chichester Festival Theatre), I Call My Brothers (Gate Theatre), dirty butterfly (Young Vic). Assistant Directing includes: wonder.land (National Theatre) and The Changeling (Young Vic).
She will direct The Big Life at Stratford East in 2024.
AS YOU LIKE IT
BRENDAN O’HEA – DIRECTOR
Brendan trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
As a director his credits for Shakespeare’s Globe include: After Edward, The Comedy of Errors, Pericles, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest and As You Like It.
His acting credits include: Waiting for Godot (world tour), All’s Well That Ends Well, Saint Joan, A Little Night Music and Under Milk Wood (National Theatre), Hamlet (Barbican), King Lear (Chichester), Merry Wives, the Musical (RSC).
His TV and film credits include: Mrs Brown, Quantum of Solace and Selected Exits. Acting credits for Shakespeare’s Globe includes: The Tempest, Cymbeline, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Thomas Tallis, The Last Days of Troy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Henry V, and Antony and Cleopatra.
He is the co-author of the Sunday Times Bestseller Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent.
NORTHERN BALLET, ROMEO & JULIET
MASSIMO MORICONE - CHOREOGRAPHER
Massimo Moricone trained at the Centro Sperimentale di Danza, Contemporanea, Rome, Maurice Béjart’s Mudra, Brussels and Centre Internationale de la Danse. In 1983 he founded the Teatro Koros Company, and has also worked with the Teatro Alla Scala, the Piccolo Teatro, Milan, Sagra Musicale Umbra, the Pier Paolo Pasolini Foundation, Teatro Ponchielli, Cremona and La Biennale di Venezia.
In 1984 he won first prize at the International Choreographic Competition at Nyon in Switzerland, and the same year Serge Lifar conferred upon him the Prix de L’Universite de la Danse de Paris.
For Northern Ballet he worked to create Romeo & Juliet with Christopher Gable which premiered in 1991 and went on to receive a nomination for an Olivier Award.
CHRISTOPHER GABLE - DIRECTOR
Christopher Gable (1940-1998) trained at Sadler’s Wells Ballet School and went on to dance with Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet, Covent Garden Opera Ballet, Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and The Royal Ballet.
He created many roles for The Royal Ballet including Romeo in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet and The Invitation, The Two Pigeons, Jeu de Cartes and House of Birds.
In 1982 he founded the Central School of Ballet, London where he was Artistic Director. He joined Northern Ballet Theatre to play L S Lowry in Gillian Lynne’s A Simple Man and was appointed Artistic Director in July 1987.
The following years saw Northern Ballet receive MEN awards for Best Dance Production of the Year for Giselle and Romeo & Juliet. Christopher’s first full-length choreography was for Cinderella which premièred in 1993 and was hailed ‘a Cinderella for the 90s’.
In 1996 he was awarded the CBE for services to British Dance. Christopher died from cancer on October 23, 1998, in his eleventh year as Artistic Director of Northern Ballet Theatre.
THE NEW REAL
DAVID EDGAR - PLAYWRIGHT
David Edgar’s original plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company include Destiny, Maydays and Pentecost which won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play.
His plays for the National Theatre include Entertaining Strangers, The Shape of the Table, Albert Speer and Playing with Fire.
His adaptations include a multi-award-winning adaptation of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby and A Christmas Carol. In 2018 he wrote and presented a touring solo show, Trying it On.
His book about playwriting, How Plays Work, was published by Nick Hern Books in 2009.
His new play about Arthur Miller, Here in America, opens at the Orange Tree Theatre, in September.
He is a past President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, which gave him an Outstanding Contribution award in 2023. In 1989 he founded Britain's first graduate playwriting course at the University of Birmingham.
HOLLY RACE ROUGHAN - DIRECTOR
Holly is Artistic Director of Headlong, for whom she directed A View from the Bridge (Octagon Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Rose Theatre Kingston), Henry V (Shakespeare’s Globe), Corrina, Corrina (Liverpool Everyman), Hedda Tesman (Chichester Festival Theatre), People, Places & Things (UK tour, with Jeremy Herrin).
Other directing work includes Metamorphosis (Shakespeare’s Globe, with Sean Holmes), Broken Dreams (Royal Court Theatre), Prurience (Southbank Centre and Guggenheim Museum), A First World Problem, Clickbait (Theatre503), Best Served Cold (VAULT Festival) and Eye of a Needle (Southwark Playhouse).
Television includes House Party and Penny, part of Unprecedented.
Audio credits includes Ghost Caller, part of Signal Fires a nationwide festival which she co-created.
Holly was Director of the Lyric Ensemble at Lyric Hammersmith between 2018 and 2019 and sits on the board of arts-in-prisons charity Kestrel Theatre Company, where she was Associate Director 2015 to 2019.
OTHELLO
TIM CARROLL – DIRECTOR
Tim Carroll has directed theatre and opera around the world.
For the RSC, Tim has directed Merchant of Venice. His other credits include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sydney Opera House); The Turn of the Screw and Bluebeard’s Castle (Opera Oviedo, Spain); Hamlet (The Factory, London); Peter Pan and King John for Stratford Festival, Ontario; and many productions in Hungary and for the National Theatres of Norway, Romania and Portugal.
As Associate Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, he directed many productions, including Twelfth Night and Richard III, which had record-breaking runs in the West End and on Broadway.
Since 2017 Tim Carroll has been Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival of Canada. Productions there include: Stephen Fry’s Mythos, Saint Joan, Androcles and the Lion, Desire Under The Elms, and an improvised version of The Game Of Love And Chance.
In addition to his work as a director, Tim Carroll has always been committed to the development of young artists, giving master classes in acting and directing around the world.
THE RED SHOES
NANCY HARRIS - PLAYWRIGHT
Nancy Harris is an award-winning writer from Dublin, whose work has been produced in the UK, Ireland, Germany, New York and New Zealand.
For the RSC, she wrote the book and co-wrote the lyrics (with composer Marc Teitler) for the new musical of Kate DiCamillo’s The Magician’s Elephant.
Her plays include: Somewhere Out There You, Two Ladies, The Beacon, Our New Girl and No Romance. She adapted The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy (Gate Theatre) and wrote Baddies the Musical and a version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes for children - The Man With The Disturbingly Smelly Foot, both for the Unicorn.
She is a past recipient of The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the Stewart Parker Award and has been a finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
For television she is the creator and writer of the BAFTA nominated comedy/drama series The Dry.
KIMBERLEY RAMPERSAD - DIRECTOR
Kimberley Rampersad is a Canadian-based theatre maker. She is also the Associate Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
She directed the full-length production of Man and Superman by Bernard Shaw and was the Director and Choreographer of Chitra by Rabindranath Tagore.
In 2023 she directed on the main stages of the two largest repertory theatre companies in North America - King Lear at the Stratford Festival and The Amen Corner, by James Baldwin at the Shaw Festival.
This is her debut season with the RSC.
Other directing credits include The Color Purple (Neptune/Royal MTC/Citadel), Intimate Apparel (WJT), How Black Mothers Say I Love You (GCTC), hang, with Philip Akin (Obsidian), and choreography credits include Matilda (Royal MTC/Citadel/Arts Club), Passing Strange (Musical Stage/Obsidian) and Seussical (YPT).
TWELFTH NIGHT
PRASANNA PUWANARAJAH - DIRECTOR
Prasanna is a director, writer and actor who previously directed Venice Preserved at the RSC.
His other directing credits includes The Reluctant Fundamentalist (National Youth Theatre, Finborough Theatre, The Yard, Summerhall), Moth (HighTide Festival, Bush Theatre), The Wages of Thin (Old Red Lion), Microscope (Riz Ahmed at Fabric, Latitude, Glastonbury).
Theatre writing includes: Nightwatchman (National Theatre). Screen writing and directing include Breathtaking (HTM, co-created with Rachel Clarke and Jed Mercurio), Unprecedented and Boy. Screen directing credits includes Ballywalter (BIFA Longlisted and winner of the Douglas Hickox Award for Outstanding Debut Director), The Half-Light, Spoof or Die and Come To Me.
As an actor, television credits include Payback, The Crown, Ten Percent, Line of Duty, Mum, Defending the Guilty, Doctor Foster, Patrick Melrose. Stage includes Absolute Hell, Dara, Emperor and Galilean, Hamlet, London Assurance (National Theatre); Twelfth Night (RSC); The Vote (Donmar Warehouse); Macbeth (Young Vic).
He was a JMK Award Runner Up in 2011.
HAMLET
RUPERT GOOLD - DIRECTOR
Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre, founding Artistic Director of Headlong, Associate Director at the RSC and Artistic Director of Northampton Theatres. For the RSC, Rupert has directed The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and Speaking Like Magpies.
For the Almeida Theatre, his credits include Cold War, Women, Beware the Devil, Tammy Faye (transferring to Broadway in 2024), Patriots (also West End), Spring Awakening (screened in cinemas UK wide), Albion, The Hunt, Shipwreck, Richard III, Medea, The Merchant of Venice, American Psycho (also Broadway), Ink, King Charles III (also West End/Broadway).
Other theatre includes: Dear England (National Theatre/West End), The 47th (The Old Vic), The Effect, Earthquakes in London (Headlong/National Theatre), Time and the Conways (National Theatre), The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Kensington Gardens), Made in Dagenham, Oliver!, The Glass Menagerie, No Man’s Land (West End).
Television includes: Macbeth, King Charles III and Richard II.
Film includes: Judy.
Rupert has received Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard awards for Best Director twice and won a Peabody Award in 2011 for Macbeth. Rupert received a CBE in 2017 New Year’s Honours for services to drama.
EDWARD II
DANIEL RAGGETT - DIRECTOR
Daniel’s work as a director includes Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, adapted by Tom Basden for Sheffield Theatres, which then transferred to the Lyric Hammersmith and the Theatre Royal Haymarket, ANNA X by Joseph Charlton which opened in the West End and was later broadcast on Sky Arts, a new edited version of The Vortex by Noël Coward for Chichester Festival Theatre and Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice (also adapted) for the Gate Theatre (Nominated for Best Director, Off West End Awards).
Daniel has also worked extensively as an associate director on productions at the National Theatre, in the West End and on Broadway, including on West Side Story (Broadway) and Network (Broadway/National Theatre).
He was nominated for the Emerging Talent Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in 2022.