2011/12 season > The Wild Bride > Who’s who
who’s who
Emma Rice, Adaptor and Director
Carl Grose, Text and Lyrics
Stu Barker, Music
Etta Murfitt, Choreographer
Bill Mitchell, Scenic Design
Myriddin Wannell, Costume Design
Malcolm Rippeth, Lighting Design
Simon Baker, Sound Design
Andy Graham, Associate Sound Design
Paul Crewes, Producer
Simon Harvey, Assistant Director
Éva Magyar, Additional Dance
Steph Curtis, Company Stage Manager
Cynthia Cahill, Assistant Stage Manager
David Harraway, Production Manager
Ben Nichols, Re-lights / Lighting Operator
Sarah Wright, Props / Puppet Maker
Alex Crombie-Rodgers, Carpenter
Cast
Audrey Brisson, The Girl
Stuart Goodwin, The Father and The Prince
Patrycja Kujawska, The Wild
Éva Magyar, The Woman
Stuart McLoughlin, The Devil
Ian Ross, The Musician
Emma Rice
Adaptor and Director
Emma is the joint artistic director and deputy chief executive of Kneehigh Theatre. She has directed for Kneehigh The Bacchae (2005 Theatrical Management Association Theatre Award for best touring production), Brief Encounter (tour, West End, Studio 54 and Broadway, a David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers Production in association with Kneehigh), Cymbeline (in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Complete Works Festival), Don John (in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic), A Matter of Life and Death (Royal National Theatre production in association with Kneehigh), Rapunzel (in association with Battersea Arts Centre), The Red Shoes (2002 TMA Theatre Award for best director), Tristan & Yseult (2006 TMA Theatre Award nomination for best touring production) and The Wooden Frock (2004 TMA Theatre Award nomination for best touring production). Emma was nominated for the 2009 Olivier Award for best director for Brief Encounter. As well as two new shows for this year’s Asylum, Emma’s latest work includes the West End production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Carl Grose
Text and Lyrics
Carl has worked extensively with Kneehigh for the past 16 years as both a writer and an actor. His writing for Kneehigh includes The Bacchae, Blast!, Cymbeline, Hansel & Gretel, Quick Silver, Tristan & Yseult and Wagstaffe the Wind-up Boy. Carl has also written for BBC TV and Radio, o-region, the RSC and the National Theatres, Told by an Idiot and Vesturport. His recent plays include Gargantua with National Theatre Connections and ‘Orse Piss for Blood with the Drum Theatre, Plymouth. He is currently writing Burn Me Dead (a musical inspired by The Master and Margarita) and a new show for Kneehigh about the Cornish world boxing champion, Bob Fitzsimmons.
Stu Barker
Music
Stu has worked extensively as composer/musical director with Kneehigh. He was the composer/music director on such co-produced shows as The Bacchae and The Wooden Frock at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Cymbeline at the RSC, Don John at the RSC and Bristol Old Vic, Hansel & Gretel at the Bristol Old Vic, A Matter of Life and Death and Tristan & Yseult at the Royal National Theatre, Nights at the Circus and The Red Shoes at Lyric Hammersmith, Pandora’s Box at Northern Stage and Rapunzel at the Battersea Arts Centre. Stu has also worked as a composer or music director at the Bristol Old Vic, Contact Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Horse + Bamboo, Shakespeare’s Globe, Travelling Light Theatre and Welfare State international.
Etta Murfitt
Choreographer
Etta is associate director and founder-member for Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures. She has been associate director for The Car Man (Bristol Old Vic and the UK, European, U.S. and Japanese tours), Cinderella (Sadler’s Wells Theatre and UK tour), Dorian Gray (Edinburgh Festival and Sadler’s Wells), Edward Scissorhands (London, UK tour, Japan, Korea, U.S. and Australia), the restaging of Highland Fling (Sadler’s Wells, UK tour and Japanese tour) and Nutcracker! (London and the UK, Far East and U.S. tours). She has also worked as rehearsal director for Cinderella (West End and Los Angeles), Deadly Serious, Highland Fling, The Infernal Galop, The Percy’s of Fitzrovia, the original production of Swan Lake (Sadler’s Wells and UK tour) and Town & Country, as well as performing Clara in the original production of Nutcracker! (Opera North and Sadler’s Wells) and Matron/Queen Candy in the 2007–08 production. She has performed on TV and in film in The Car Man (as Rita, Channel 4), Late Flowering Lust (BBC), Mrs. Hartley and the Growth Centre (BBC), Nutcracker! (as Clara, BBC/NVC), Roald Dahl’s Red Riding Hood (BBC) and Storm (Aletta Collins/BBC Dance for the Camera), and she was the rehearsal director for Swan Lake (BBC). Etta’s choreography credits include restaging Adventures in Moving Pictures’ The Infernal Galop for images of Dance and Sarasota Ballet; Le Nozze di Figaro, directed by Martin Lloyd-Evans for Holland Park Opera; A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Dawn French, directed by Matthew Francis at the Albery Theatre; restaging AMP’s Nutcracker! (Sadler’s Wells); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, directed by Sir Trevor Nunn for Chichester Festival Theatre and Theatre Royal Haymarket; and The Way of the World, directed by Selina Cadell at Wilton’s Music Hall. Etta was the choreographer for Kneehigh’s production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Bill Mitchell
Scenic Design
Bill became part of the Kneehigh team in 1987 and was artistic director from 1997 to 2005. In 2006 he was made an honorary fellow of University College Falmouth. Bill has worked on many Kneehigh productions including Ghost Nets, The King of Prussia, Tregeagle and Tristan & Yseult. More recently he designed The Bacchae, A Matter of Life and Death, Nights at the Circus and The Wooden Frock, and revisited The Red Shoes for the Asylum last year. In 2005 Bill established his own landscape theatre company Wildworks, creating A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings in 2005, Souterrain in 2006–07 and The Beautiful Journey in 2009. This year Wildworks collaborated with Michael Sheen and the National Theatre Wales on The Passion in Port Talbot and at present is enjoying a two-year residency in Kensington Palace with the much-acclaimed project Enchanted Palace.
Myriddin Wannell
Costume Design
Myriddin (Mydd) is a theatre designer and visual artist based in Cornwall. After graduating with a BA with honors in theatre design from Wimbledon School of Art, a new wind blew him to Kernow to study a second degree in fine art at University College Falmouth. Mydd has worked alongside Bill Mitchell as associate designer for Wildworks since the company’s creation in 2005; shows include The Beautiful Journey, The Memory Projector, Souterrain and A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. His recent productions include a two-year residency at Kensington Palace with The Enchanted Palace and The Passion, a site-specific collaboration between Wildworks, Michael Sheen and the National Theatre Wales. Enjoying site-specific collaborations, Mydd has also worked extensively as a community artist with a wide spectrum of people in the UK, France, Germany, Romania, Australia and Africa. He is the design consultant at the Eden Project, Cornwall.
Malcolm Rippeth
Lighting Design
Malcolm has worked with Kneehigh since 2002, lighting The Bacchae, Blast!, Brief Encounter, Cymbeline, Don John, The King of Prussia, Midnight’s Pumpkin, Nights at the Circus, Pandora’s Box, The Red Shoes and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Elsewhere his work includes The Acid Test at the Royal Court Theatre, Armida at the Garsington Opera, The Bloody Chamber at Northern stage, Calendar Girls (West End/Australia/Canada), Carmen Jones at Royal Festival Hall, Copenhagen at the Edinburgh Royal Lyceum, Crash at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Decade at Headlong Theatre at St. Katharine’s Dock, Designer Body with balletLORENT, The Devil Inside Him at the National Theatre Wales, Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness at Headlong Theatre, The Field in Dublin, Hamlet with the English Touring Theatre, His Dark Materials at Birmingham Rep, HMS Pinafore at the Guthrie Theater, Seven Deadly Sins with WNO/Diversions Dance, Six Characters in Search of an Author on the West End, Tutti Frutti at National Theatre of Scotland and The Winslow Boy at the Rose Theatre Kingston. Malcolm won a 2010 Obie Award as a member of the design team for Brief Encounter in New York and the 2009 Theatregoers’ Choice Award for best lighting designer for his work on Brief Encounter and Six Characters in Search of an Author in the West End.
Simon Baker
Sound Design
Simon’s most recent credits include the 2010 Asylum season for Kneehigh, Arcadia in London, the international tour of Batman Live!, The Birds in Dublin, Boeing Boeing in London and on Broadway (2007 Tony nomination for best sound), Bridge Project 2010 (BAM, London and international tour), Brief Encounter (London, UK tour, U.S. tour and St Anne’s Warehouse; 2008 Olivier nomination for best sound and 2011 Tony nomination for best sound), Don John (RSC, UK tour and Battersea Arts Centre), God of Carnage and La Bête in London and on Broadway, Late Middle Classes in London, Lord of the Rings in Toronto and London (2007 Olivier nomination for best sound), Matilda—a musical with the RSC, Me and My Girl at the Sheffield, The Norman Conquests in London and on Broadway, the UK tour of Our House, The Real Thing in London and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in London. Simon graduated from the Guildhall School in 1992 and became a fellow of the school in 2010.
Andy Graham
Associate Sound Design
Andy has worked on Blast!, Brief Encounter (UK and U.S.), The King of Prussia and The Red Shoes (UK, U.S. and Australia) while part of the Kneehigh team. He graduated from Mountview Theatre School in 2001 with a BA with honors in technical theatre, and has worked as a sound operator and engineer primarily in London’s West End ever since. Andy worked as an operator on Contact, The Full Monty, Guys and Dolls (Olivier nomination), Jerry Springer—The Opera (Olivier Award for best sound), The King and I, The Lord of the Rings (Olivier nomination) and the UK tour of Our House. As a production engineer, Andy’s credits include End of the Rainbow, High School Musical, Treasure Island and most recently Ghost the Musical.
Paul Crewes
Producer
Before working with Kneehigh, Paul worked as producer at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, where he set up over 40 productions as well as collaborations with Kneehigh (The Bacchae and The Wooden Frock), Improbable Theatre, National Theatre, Teatre Romea and with commercial and West End producers. He also produced the UK tour of Doorman with his own company in 2005. He was associate producer for the Lowry, producing King Cotton in 2007, and Fireflies and Beyond the Frontline in 2009. He worked for Metal with Jude Kelly on several projects including the Olympic bid for 2012. Paul has worked for Kneehigh since 2005 and has produced the U.S. tour of Brief Encounter, Cymbeline (UK, Colombia and Brazil), Don John (UK and U.S.), Hansel & Gretel, Rapunzel (UK and U.S.), Tristan & Yseult (UK, Sydney, New Zealand and U.S.), the launch of the Kneehigh Asylum (featuring Blast!, The King of Prussia and The Red Shoes) and the 2010 tour of The Red Shoes (UK, U.S. and Australia).
Simon Harvey
Assistant Director
Simon is a director, performer and producer based in Truro, Cornwall. As Kneehigh’s resident assistant director his recent work includes Brief Encounter (UK and U.S. tours), Cymbeline, Hansel & Gretel, Rapunzel and The Red Shoes (national and international tours). Simon has performed in a number of Kneehigh shows including Blast! and The King of Prussia (Asylum 2010), Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Wagstaffe the Wind-up Boy. Outside of Kneehigh, Simon is the artistic director of o-region, a theatre and film production company for whom he recently produced and directed One Darke Night. He is also the co-producer of the company’s second feature film Weekend Retreat by Brett Harvey, which is currently in post-production.
Steph Curtis
Company Stage Manager
Steph’s work as part of the Kneehigh team includes Brief Encounter (UK, London and U.S. tours), Don John (RSC, UK and U.S. tours), The Red Shoes (UK, U.S. and Australian tours) and the 2010 and 2011 Asylum seasons. Steph graduated from Middlesex University in 2000 with a BA with honors in technical theatre arts, and was awarded the Stage Management Association’s Stage Manager of the Year Award 2011.
Cynthia Cahill *
Assistant Stage Manager
Cynthia has been working as a professional theatre artist in the Bay Area, New York City and around the country for more than 18 years. This summer she was the production stage manager for the last legs of Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy tour and this fall has just finished directing a new musical in New York called If You Could See: The Alice Austen Story for Sundog Theatre. Recently she was the production manager for the European tour of Hello Hi There, a performance art piece directed by Annie Dorsen, and last summer she directed productions of Brides of the Moon for Common Ground Theatre in North Carolina and Fête for the Midtown international Theatre Festival in New York City. Cynthia has worked as a stage manager on Broadway with Passing Strange, off-Broadway at The Culture Project, The Public Theater and Second Stage and regionally at the Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage, Berkeley Rep (18+ seasons), Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Yale Repertory Theatre, among many others.
cast
Audrey Brisson
The Girl
This is Audrey’s first time working with Kneehigh. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, graduating in 2009. She also studied classical singing at Cegep St-Laurent, Canada. As a child and teenager, Audrey worked extensively with Cirque du Soleil as a vocalist and performer. She performed in its international tours of Quidam (1996–2000) and Réinventé (1989). She also performed in the papal event at Yankee stadium in 2008. Since graduation, Audrey has filmed the feature films Hereafter directed by Clint Eastwood and W.E. directed by Madonna, and for television, a new drama adaptation of Martin Amis’ novel Money for the BBC.
Stuart Goodwin
The Father and The Prince
This is Stuart’s first time working with Kneehigh. It marks a return to theatre after several years during which time he, his wife and two daughters travelled Europe working on organic farms and in eco-communities. They have now settled in West Sussex where they have a few acres of land that they are busy developing into a community smallholding and events venue. Having trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1995 to 1998, Stuart particularly enjoyed working on the Oscar-nominated film Cashback, The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the RSC and State of Play (BAFTA winner).
Patrycja Kujawska
The Wild
Patrycja has performed with Kneehigh in Don John, The Red Shoes and as a regular member of the Kneehigh Band. She 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 danced 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. For Vincent Dance Theatre, Patrycja has made and toured internationally Broken Chords, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Fairy Tale, If We Go On, Let the Mountains Lead You to Love, Punch Drunk and Test Run. She was awarded a grant from Arts Council England to compose music inspired by French sculptor Sabrina Gruss.
Éva Magyar
The Woman
Éva is an actress, choreographer and director. In her native Hungary, Éva worked on a great many productions in diverse theatrical forms with various companies. In Britain, Éva has worked extensively with Kneehigh Company as Agave in The Bacchae and Yseult in Tristan & Yseult, which she reprised for the National Theatre. Éva performed her one-woman show House of Deer at Battersea Arts Centre, has played Kaikeyi in Ramayana for the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and the Mother in Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents at the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. Recently she played Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet for the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared in Breathing Irregular for the Gate Theatre. Her film credits include lead roles in The Death of Pentheus (Methodact Ltd), A Matter of Life, The Understudy and most recently X-Men: First Class (Fox London Productions Ltd). Éva runs her own company, The Shamans, which is highly acclaimed in Hungary and internationally, winning numerous awards including best actress (Poland), best director (Cairo), the Independent Award (California) and the Herald Angel (Edinburgh). She trained at the Budapest Drama and Film Academy.
Stuart McLoughlin
The Devil
Stuart returns to Kneehigh having previously been seen in Brief Encounter on the West End and A Matter of Life and Death at the National Theatre. His other theatre credits include Coram Boy at the National Theatre; The Odyssey, Suspension, Swallows and Amazons at the Bristol Old Vic; Up the Feeder Down the Mouth and Back Again; and The Wizard of Oz at Hall for Cornwall. Stuart’s film credits include The Deep Blue Sea, The Golden Age and Made in Dagenham, and his TV credits include Clone, Little Dorrit, Trevor Island and Waking the Dead.
Ian Ross
The Musician
Ian is a multi-instrumentalist with around 12 years of experience as a performer and composer. He has worked for Kneehigh on several projects including as a musician and co-composer on Hansel & Gretel and as a musician on Brief Encounter, Don John, The King of Prussia and The Red Shoes in 2010. With Bristol-based ska-hip-hop phenomenon Babyhead and the inimitable high-tea lovelies The Zen Hussies, Ian has had extensive performance history ranging from New York Fashion Week to the jazz world stage at Glastonbury Festival.
The company of The Wild Bride is appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association.
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
