Creatives

Adaptor and Director: Tim Carroll

Tim Carroll began his career with the English Shakespeare Company, for whom he directed Julius Caesar, Cymbeline and The Tempest. 

He is currently Associate Director of Shakespeare’s Globe in London, where he has directed Peter Oswald’s Augustine’s Oak (1999), The Two Noble Kinsmen (2000), and Macbeth (2001). In 2002 directed The Golden Ass and Twelfth Night; the latter won Evening Standard, Time Out, Critics’ Circle and Olivier Awards, and in 2003 was revived for a record-breaking run at the Globe, followed by a tour of the United States. Also in 2003 at the Globe he directed Richard II (winner of the Jujamcyn Award) and Dido, Queen of Carthage, and in 2004 Romeo and Juliet. In 2005 he directed The Tempest and a new Peter Oswald play, The Storm. 

Since the late 90s Tim Carroll has done many productions abroad, especially in Hungary, where he has directed four plays: The Clearing; Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards, The Duchess of Malfi and Hamlet. In 2004 he directed The Tempest at the Teatro Sao Luiz, Lisbon, and in 2008 Peer Gynt for the Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis.  

Tim Carroll has an increasingly busy career as an opera director. His first production was for Kent Opera in 1994: Benjamin Britten’s The Prodigal Son. He is now Artistic Director of Kent Opera, for whom he has staged Purcell in the Theatre (1995), Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1997/8), Handel’s Acis and Galatea (2002), Britten’s Albert Herring (2003) and Mozart’s il re pastore (2004). At the Gran Teatre de Liceu, Barcelona since 1999 he has staged Cabaret Classico, The Divine Sarah and White Christmas, as well as Britten’s Five Canticles. In 2003 he directed Monteverdi’s il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria for the Britten-Pears School in  Aldeburgh and at Shakespeare’s Globe. Other opera includes: Eight Songs for a Mad King (Maxwell Davies), El Cimarron (Henze) and Twice Through The Heart (Turnage) for Psappha Modern Music Ensemble; Tosca for English Touring Opera, Manon Lescaut  and The Barber of Seville for Opera Holland Park, London, The Turn of the Screw for Opera Oviedo, Spain, and The Abduction from the Seraglio for the Csokonai Theatre in Hungary. 

In 2005 he directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, staged at the Lincoln Centre, New York, and the Royal Festival Hall in London, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment playing Mendelssohn’s score.  The production was revived in May this year at Middle Temple Hall and broadcast on BBC Radio and TV. In 2007, also with the OAE, he directed The Tragedy of Dido and Aeneas, his own conflation of the Purcell opera and Marlowe play. 

Last year his productions included The Merchant of Venice for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Hamlet with the Factory. This year he has directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Sydney Opera House, The Seagull with The Factory and The Odyssey for The National Theatre of Craiova, Romania.

Adaptor: Ben Power

Ben Power is a writer and dramaturge and is the Associate Director of Headlong Theatre. He is currently under commission to the National Theatre and the RSC and is developing new collaborations with the choreographer Will Tuckett and the acclaimed Dutch composer Michel van der Aa.

Theatre includes A Tender Thing (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2009); The Things She Sees (National Theatre Connections, 2009); Cinderella (Lyric Hammersmith, 2008 / Warwick Arts Centre, 2009); Six Characters in Search of an Author (West End 2008 / Headlong National Tour, 2009); A Disappearing Number (Complicite International Tour, 2007/8 Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle awards for Best New Play); Faustus (Hampstead Theatre and Headlong National Tour, 2006/7); Paradise Lost (Hackney Empire and Headlong National Tour, 2006); The Tempest & Much Ado About Nothing (RSC Complete Works Festival, 2006) Tamburlaine The Great (Bankside Rose, 2004).

Radio includes A Disappearing Number (BBC Radio 3, 2008).

Forthcoming work includes Mozart’s Zaide (Sadler’s Wells and National Tour, 2010); Gulliver (Headlong National Tour, 2010).

 

Designer: Laura Hopkins

Laura trained on the Motley Design Course and was a 1991 Linbury Prize Finalist. Design credits include, in 2009: Time and The Conways (Royal National Theatre); The House of Bernarda Alba (National Theatre of Scotland) and Rudolf (Vereinigte Bühnen Wien).

Other recent design credits: Blackwatch (National Theatre of Scotland); Othello (Frantic Assembly); Sinatra (Sinatra Productions London Ltd); Stockholm (Frantic Assembly); The Merchant of Venice (RSC); Peer Gynt (Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis); Faustus (Headlong); Rough Crossings (Headlong); The Psychic Detective (Benchtours) and Leaves of Glass (Soho Theatre).

Choreographer: Siân Williams

Siân Williams trained at the London College of Dance and Drama. She founded The Kosh dance theatre company with Michael Merwitzer. Siân has worked as choreographer for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre since 1999 and has also worked as Movement Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Other choreography includes: Yerma (Arcola Theatre); I Am Shakespeare (Chichester Festival); Romeo and Juliet (University of South Florida); The Rake’s Progress (Royal College of Music); ENO’s A Better Place. Direction includes: A Square of Sky (The Kosh); The Handsomest Drowned Man (Circus Space). Performances include: all of The Kosh productions; the role of Grisette in Opera North’s La Traviata; The Tempest, The Storm, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Timon of Athens (Shakespeare’s Globe). In 2008 she was choreographer for The Merchant of Venice at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is currently choreographer for Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, Helen and Love’s Labours Lost for Shakespeare’s Globe. Siân is also performing in The Kosh production The Storeroom.

Lighting Designer: James Farncombe

As a freelance lighting designer, James has lit over 150 productions throughout the UK. Recent credits includes critically acclaimed lighting for The Overcoat (for Gecko/Lyric Hammersmith): The Great Game – Afganistan (a cycle of 12 new plays at the Tricycle, London); The Ayckbourn at 70 season at Northampton Theatre Royal  including Man of the Moment (dir Alan Ayckbourn); Turandot (Hampstead Theatre); The Dysfunckshonals and 2000 Feet Away (Bush Theatre); Plague Over England (Duchess Theatre, West End) and Breaking the Silence (Nottingham Playhouse).

James was recently nominated for a Knights of Illumination award for The Dysfunckshonalz (also directed by Tamara Harvey) at the Bush, and was shortlisted for the 2008 Arts Foundation Award for Lighting Design.  He is artistic associate of the Bush Theatre, London.  A full list of credits and production photographs are available at web.mac.com/jamesfarncombe.