Internationally award-winning writer Tom Stoppard’s plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, After Magritte, Jumpers, New Found Land, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, Travesties, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (a play for actors and orchestra written with André Previn), Night and Day, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, The Coast of Utopia, Rock ‘n’ Roll and The Hard Problem. His radio plays include Albert’s Bridge, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Dog It Was That Died, If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank, and most recently, his dramatic imagining of Pink Floyd’s Darkside of the Moon, Darkside. Stoppard is also a writer for film and television and received the Academy Award for the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love.
Patrick Marber was born in London in 1964. He is a playwright, screenwriter and director. He directed his own play Closer on Broadway (Music Box) in 1999 and then Tom Stoppard’s Travesties in 2018 (Roundabout/American Airlines). These productions received Tony nominations for Best Play, Best Director and Best Revival. Directing credits of his own work include Dealer’s Choice, Closer, Howard Katz, Three days in the Country at the National Theatre, After Miss Julie for BBC TV and Don Juan in Soho at Wyndham’s Theatre. Other directing credits include The Room as part of the Pinter at the Pinter Season, Venus In Fur at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, The Caretaker at the Comedy Theatre, Blue Remembered Hills at the National Theatre, ‘1953’ at the Almeida and The Old Neighborhood at the Royal Court Theatre. Marber’s plays, which have received multiple awards both in the West End and on Broadway, also include The Red Lion and versions of Hedda Gabler and Exit The King. He received an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay Notes on a Scandal.
Born in Zimbabwe, he trained at Wimbledon School of Art, and lives in London. He has designed sets and costumes for opera, ballet, plays and musicals all over the world. In 1988 he won an Olivier Award for a season of plays at the Old Vic, and for The Lion King he won a Tony Award for set design in 1998.
Brigitte Reiffenstuel was born in Munich and studied at the London College of Fashion and Central St Martins College of Art and Design. She won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Costume and the Oscar della Lirica award for achievement in costume design. Recent work includes: Oklahoma! for Chichester Festival Theatre; The Light in the Piazza at the Royal Festival Hall, London; Twelfth Night at the Young Vic. Her extensive work in opera includes productions at the Opéra National de Paris, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. She designed the costumes for Kate Bush’s album tour, Before The Dawn.
Neil Austin is the recipient of three Tony, two Olivier and two Drama Desk Awards. His work on Broadway includes: Company, Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, Ink, Travesties, Hughie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Evita, Red, Hamlet, The Seafarer and Frost Nixon. His recent West End work includes: The 47th, Frozen, Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, Leopoldstadt, After Life, Company, The Night of the Iguana, Rosmersholm, Shakespeare in Love, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Red, Ink, The Goat, Photograph 51, and Bend it Like Beckham.
Select theatre: Patriots (Almeida); The 47th (Old Vic); The Shark is Broken (Ambassadors); Ink (Almeida/Duke of York’s/MTC); Mosquitoes (National); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Harold Pinter); Travesties (Menier Chocolate Factory/Apollo/Broadway); No Man’s Land (Sheffield Lyceum/Wyndham’s); Les Blancs, Danton’s Death (National). His musical London Road (National Theatre, co-authored with Alecky Blythe) won the 2011 Critic’s Circle Award for Best Musical and was nominated for the 2012 Olivier Award for Best Musical; a film version was released in 2015. Tony Award winner for Red (Best Sound Design); ‘Best Design’ Evening Standard Award winner for Anna Christie and King Lear (Donmar); Olivier Award winner for King Lear (Best Sound Design); Tony Award nominee for Enron (Best Original Score).
Theatre includes: The House Of Shades (Video Designer, Almeida); Leopoldstadt (Projection; Wyndham’s Theatre); Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (Video Design, Chichester Festival Theatre); Caroline, or Change (AV Content Editor, Chichester Festival Theatre/Hampstead/Playhouse); Top Girls (Projectionist, National Theatre); Hansard (Video Content, National Theatre); All About Eve (Camera Operator, Noël Coward); My Brilliant Friend, Peter Gynt, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Lehman Trilogy, I’m Not Running and Anthony & Cleopatra (National Theatre); Quiz (Chichester Festival Theatre/Noël Coward).
EJ is a choreographer and movement director for theatre and film. West End credits include Leopoldstadt, The Mirror and the Light and Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of). Other theatre includes Henry VI (RSC); Measure for Measure (Shakespeare’s Globe); Exit the King (National Theatre); Nora: A Doll’s House (Young Vic); Oresteia: This Restless House (Edinburgh International Festival); and productions for Goodspeed, Leeds Playhouse, Menier Chocolate Factory, Dundee Rep, Sheffield Crucible, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and the Citizens Theatre. Television/film includes “The Crown” (Netflix), Our Ladies (Sony), “Two Doors Down” (BBC), “In Plain Sight” (ITV), God Help the Girl (Sundance); “Glasgow Commonwealth Games Ceremonies” (BBC).
Broadway: The Devil Wears Prada (Chicago), A Beautiful Noise (Boston), Funny Girl, Music Man, King Lear, To Kill A Mockingbird, Head Over Heels, Carousel, Three Tall Women, Hello Dolly!, Groundhog Day, The Front Page, The Crucible, Misery, Sylvia, Betrayal, Les Misérables, Spider-Man. Broadway/West End: Company, A Christmas Carol, Tina – Tina Turner Musical (Drama Desk award for Outstanding Wig and Hair Design), The Ferryman, Farinelli and the King, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Ghost, Billy Elliot. West End: Back To The Future, Cinderella, Anything Goes, Leopoldstadt, Rosmersholm, All About Eve. Film/TV: “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel,” Downton Abbey (movie).
Jim Carnahan has cast over 150 Broadway shows. His work on Broadway this season includes: Almost Famous, A Beautiful Noise, Funny Girl, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (and San Francisco), Moulin Rouge! The Musical (and tour) as well as off-Broadway’s Merrily We Roll Along (New York Theatre Workshop), and Little Shop of Horrors. Other recent Broadway credits include: Take Me Out; Plaza Suite; Caroline, or Change; and The Lehman Trilogy. Recent London work includes: Mad House and The 47th in London’s West End. Upcoming West End: Eureka Day. Upcoming Film: Ari Aster’s Disappointment Blvd.
Maureen Kelleher is an associate casting director at Jim Carnahan Casting. Previous credits as an associate for Broadway include Jagged Little Pill; Caroline, or Change; A Soldier’s Play; The Rose Tattoo; and All My Sons. Off-Broadway: English (Atlantic/Roundabout), Enemy of the People (Park Avenue Armory), Darling Grenadine (Roundabout). Upcoming National Tour: A Soldier’s Play.
Recent theatre includes: Walden, Uncle Vanya (Harold Pinter), The Son (Kiln Theatre/Duke of York’s), The Night of the Iguana (Noël Coward), Sweat (Donmar Warehouse / Gielgud), Rosmersholm (Duke of York’s), True West (Vaudeville), The Ferryman (Royal Court/Gielgud/Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre), The Moderate Soprano (Hampstead Theatre/Duke of York’s), The Birthday Party and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Harold Pinter), Consent (National / Harold Pinter), The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Hangmen (Royal Court/Wyndham’s/Atlantic Theater Company), Berberian Sound Studio (Donmar Warehouse), The Hunt, Shipwreck, Dance Nation and Albion (Almeida), Stories and Exit the King (National), A Very Very Very Dark Matter (Bridge), The Brothers Size (Young Vic) and many further productions for the Royal Court.
Anna Girvan trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, is a Jerwood Assistant Director and an RSC Creative Fellow. As assistant and associate director: The Glass Menagerie (Duke of York’s); Leopoldstadt (Wyndhams); Noises Off! (Garrick); Exit the King, The Red Lion, The Beaux’ Stratagem (National Theatre); Sancho: An Act of Remembrance (UK and US Tour); People, Places and Things (Headlong UK tour); Hamlet, King Lear (RSC/ UK Tour/ US Tour); Richard II (Shakespeare’s Globe); Happy Days (Young Vic). As director: The Invisible Man (Northern Stage); Our Country’s Good (Tobacco Factory Theatres); Twelfth Night (Southwark Playhouse); Rudolf (Midlands Arts Centre); The Internet Was Made For Adults (Vaults Festival); Go Between, Someone Else, Room 504 (Young Vic).
Trees Like Nails (NY Fringe), This is Our Youth (MN Fringe), Tape (Michael Weller Theater, NYC), Cabaret, A Chorus Line, Rocky Horror Show Live! (Swing Low Theater Co, Mpls). Associate Director: Kings (The Public), The Wrong Man (MCC). Stage Manager: Hamilton (The Public & Bway), Matilda, Wicked, Glengarry Glen Ross, Leap of Faith, War Horse, Driving Miss Daisy, The Addams Family, 13! The Musical, Rock ’N’ Roll. Film/TV: Tick Tick...BOOM!, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Graduate of Barnard College.
Broadway: Topdog/Underdog, Take Me Out, for colored girls…, Funny Girl, Skeleton Crew, MJ, Birthday Candles, Trouble in Mind, Lackawanna Blues, Lehman Trilogy, Moulin Rouge!, Soldier’s Play, To Kill a Mockingbird, Beetlejuice, Tootsie, Gary, All My Sons, True West, Network, Cher Show, Carousel, Iceman Cometh, Sweat, American in Paris, Violet, The Real Thing. Off-Broadway: The Bedwetter, Judgment Day, Hairy Ape. Film/TV: “The Grand Master: Franklin in Paris,” “Three Women,” The Tragedy of Macbeth, Women Talking, “Outer Range,” “Dopesick,” “Tokyo Vice,” “Mrs. America,” Lady Bird, Three Billboards…Missouri, “Little Women,”“Olive Kitteridge,” Inside Llewyn Davis. Faculty: Juilliard.
Sonia Friedman Productions is an international production company responsible for some of the most successful theatre productions in recent years. Since 1990, Sonia Friedman OBE has developed, initiated and produced over 180 new productions and won a combined 58 Oliviers, 34 Tonys and 3 BAFTAs. Current productions include: The Book of Mormon, West End and UK & Europe tour, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, London, New York, Melbourne, San Francisco, Toronto, Tokyo and Hamburg, Mean Girls US tour; To Kill a Mockingbird, London; Jerusalem, London; Oklahoma! London; Funny Girl, New York and Dreamgirls UK tour. Forthcoming productions / co-productions include: Hamlet, New York; Oresteia, New York; Merrily We Roll Along, New York; The Doctor, UK tour and London and The Piano Lesson, New York. In New York SFP has produced previously three Tom Stoppard plays, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Arcadia and Travesties. Other notable Broadway shows include Boeing-Boeing, Jerusalem, Farinelli and the King and King Richard the Third/Twelfth Night, all with Mark Rylance, as well as The Seagull, A Little Night Music, The Norman Conquests, La Cage aux Folles, The River, Mean Girls, The Ferryman and The Inheritance. soniafriedman.com
Roy Furman has produced 16 Broadway Tony-winning Best Plays and Musicals, including Moulin Rouge!, The Ferryman, The Color Purple, The Book of Mormon and War Horse. Currently on Broadway: MJ, Funny Girl, Mr. Saturday Night, Moulin Rouge!, Tina, Dear Even Hansen, The Book of Mormon. Forthcoming: Some Like it Hot, Sweeney Todd, Suffs. Executive Producer of James Lapine’s film, Custody and PBS’ Mike Nichols Show. Grammy winner for The Color Purple. Roy is Vice Chairman Emeritus of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Chairman and President Emeritus of Film at Lincoln Center, former President of the Phoenix Theatre, Vice President of the New York City Opera. National Finance Chairman for the Democratic National Committee for two years, National Fund Chair for Harvard Law School for two years. Vice Chairman of Jefferies Financial Group and Chairman of Jefferies Capital Partners, a group of private equity funds, for the past 20 years. In 1973, Mr. Furman co-founded Furman Selz, an international investment banking and institutional brokerage firm.
Lorne Michaels is an award-winning producer and writer, best known as the creator and executive producer of “Saturday Night Live,” the most Emmy-nominated show in television history. Michaels’ television credits also include “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” “30 Rock,” “Portlandia,” “Schmigadoon” and “Kids in the Hall” among others. His motion picture credits include Three Amigos, Wayne’s World, Tommy Boy, Mean Girls, and MacGruber, and more. On Broadway, he produced and directed Gilda Radner – Live From New York and recently produced Mean Girls, the Tony-nominated Broadway musical based on the hit movie. Michaels’ 97 Emmy nominations are the most ever for an individual, with 21 wins. He received the 2004 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and in 2013 earned the rare honor of an individual Peabody Award. Michaels was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2018. He received a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement in 2021.