Bakkhai

For the Almeida: Game

Theatre includes: The Book of Mormon (West End); Titus Andronicus; Candide (RSC); The Alchemist (Liverpool Playhouse); Decade (Headlong); Tiny Volcanoes (Paines Plough); ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Everyman Theatre, Liverpool); Salt (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Wig Out! (Royal Court); Tartuffe (Everyman Theatre, Liverpool / Rose Theatre, Kingston); Stags & Hens (Royal Court, Liverpool); Clockwork (National Theatre); Dr Faustus (Bristol Old Vic); Speaking Like Magpies; Believe What You Will; Thomas Moore; Sejanus: His Fall (RSC); Macbeth (Out of Joint); Yellowman (Everyman Theatre, Liverpool / Hampstead Theatre); The Key Game (Talawa Theatre Company); Souls (L.T.C) ; Ragamuffin (UKArts).

Television includes: Good Cop; Ding Dong; Paradox; Spooks; The Adam & Shelley Show; Ruby in the Smoke; Holby City; Merseybeat; Everybody Loves Sunshine; The Lenny Henry Show; Hearts and Minds; Dancin’ Thru the Dark; Sweet Soul Harmonies; The Golden Collar.

Film includes: A Boy Called Dad; Salvage; Til Death.

Radio includes: Writing the Century; Yerma; Stone; Tartuffe; Threepenny Opera; Cavalry; Brief Lives; Fused Ricebowl; The Book of Love; The Morning After; Why Don’t You Stop Talking.

Theatre includes: Mojo (Harold Pinter Theatre); Peter and Alice (Noël Coward Theatre); The Price (Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York); Cock (Royal Court); Some Trace of Her; The Seagull; His Dark Materials (National Theatre); Leaves of Glass (Soho Theatre); Mercury Fur (Paines Plough); Hamlet (Old Vic); His Dark Materials (National Theatre); Hamlet; If This Is a Man; I Licked a Slag’s Deoderant (Big Spirit Theatre Company); The Birthday Party; The Robbers; Mojo; Early Morning; The Devil in Drag; The Dutch Lover; Le Morte D’Arthur; Mucho Ado About Nothing; The Seagull (RADA).

Television includes: London Spy; Foxtrot; Richard II; The Hour; All Signs of Death; Criminal Justice; Nathan Barley; Booze Cruise; Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill; Other People’s Children.

Film includes: Spectre; A Hologram for the King; The Muse; Suffragette; The Lobster; Paddington; The Zero Theorem; In the Heart of The Sea;Lilting ; Cloud Atlas; Skyfall; Days and Nights; The Tempest ; Bright Star; Brideshead Revisited ; The International ; I’m Not There; Restraints of Beasts; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Stoned; Enduring Love; 77 Beds; Layer Cake; The Trench; My Brother Tom; The Escort.

Ben was nominated for Best Actor in a Play in the 2013 WhatsOnStage Awards for Peter and Alice, and in 2014 for Mojo. He was Nominated Best Actor, Laurence Olivier Awards 2005, Nominated Outstanding Newcomer, Evening Standard Awards 2005, Nominated best Actor, What’s On Stage Theatregoers Choice Awards 2005 for Hamlet. He was awarded Best Leading Actor, British Academy Television Awards for Richard II and was the Winner of the International Emmy Award for Best Actor 2009 for Criminal Justice.

Ben trained at RADA.

As a Vocal Soloist, Aruhan has worked extensively with Karl Jenkins. Aruhan made her debut performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2005 with Karl Jenkins' Tlep as Solo Soprano. In 2010 she headlined the Royal Festival Hall as Vocal Soloist with Karl Jenkins's The Armed Man and Shakarim. In 2014 she headlined Carnegie Hall with the world premiere of Jenkins' Abai. She has recorded as a soloist for Sony BMG, EMI, Deutsche-Grammophon and Decca Records and has toured extensively in the U.S, U.K, France, Japan, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Theatre includes: King John (Shakespeare’s Globe).

Television includes: Glasgow Girls; Whitechapel.

Film includes: Anna Karenina.

Aruhan trained at the NYT Rep Company

Inspired by the traditional music of her homeland, in Bulgaria Georgieva formed the Perunika Trio in 2005. Their debut, Introducing Perunika Trio appeared to rave reviews across the globe, while the lauded follow-up, A Bright Star Has Risen, was equally well-received. In 2012 Perunika Trio recorded Bulgarian Warabeuta for Sony Japan.

Georgieva is also one-third of YANTRA, a ground-breaking vocal ensemble mixing Bulgarian, Indian and English Renaissance vocal music. Originally assembled as an experiment for BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, the group appeared on The Choir with Aled Jones in 2012 and continues to record. Georgieva has guested with the Max Pashm Band, both in the studio and on tour with their Balkan/klezmer/electro album Never Mind the Balkans, in addition to working with Phil Thornton on the Nexus Tribal album and world electronic pioneers Transglobal Underground on U.N.I.T.E> A Gathering of Strangers. Working with Polina Shepherd, Georgieva won first prize for a Folk Group at 6th International Russian Song Contest, performing the traditional Russian song “Oy, So Vechora S Polunochi.”

She also leads the Veda Slovena Bulgarian Choir at University College, London, an ensemble specialising in Bulgarian and other Slavic sacred and secular music.

Georgieva is a veteran of many sessions, including The Virgin Queen, which won an Ivor Novello Award for the Best TV Soundtrack), along with the soundtrack to Skeletons and numerous ads and studio work.

Theatre includes: As You Like It (Southwark Playhouse); Sleeping Beauty (Park Theatre); Can I Be Straight With You; Courting Drama (Bush Theatre); The Boys from Syracuse (Union Theatre); The Captain of Kopenick (National Theatre); The Tempest (Theatre Royal, Bath); Legally Blonde (Malmo, Sweden); Bed &Sofa (Finborough Theatre); The Three Musketeers (Rose Theatre, Kingston); A Little Night Music (Menier Chocolate Factory / Garrick Theatre); They’re Playing Our Song; Take Flight (Menier Chocolate Factory); Desperately Seeking Susan (Novello Theatre); African Gothic (White Bear Theatre); Cabaret (Lyric Hammersmith) Sunday in the Park with George (Menier Chocolate Factory / Wyndham’s Theatre); Summer Holiday (UK tour); Mamma Mia (Prince Edward Theatre / international tour).

Television includes: Lewis.

Film includes: Coup de Grace; K; Sense of Beauty; Inhabit

Kaisa trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

Theatre includes: Sunny Afternoon (Hampstead Theatre); Picture Perfect (St James’ Theatre); The Sound of Music (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Mamma Mia (West End / tour); The Sunny Side of the Street (Jermyn St Theatre); The Human Comedy (Young Vic / The Opera Group); Peter Pan (Richmond Theatre); Blood Brothers (Phoenix Theatre); Chicago (Bronowski Productions).

Television includes: Hollyoaks; Doctors; Down to Earth; EastEnders; Heartbeat; Judge John Deed; New Tricks; Red Cap; Revelations; Rosemary and Thyme; The Bill; Where The Heart Is.

Film includes: Lovelorn.

Theatre includes: Medea; Death and the King’s Horseman (National Theatre); The Tempest (RSC); Journey to Freedom (Marginal Voices); Dart’s Love (Tete-aTete Opera Festival); Zero (Clod Ensemble); Cave of Wonders; Tamba Tamba (Tiata Fahodzi); White Suit (Helen Chadwick Song Theatre); Dalston Songs; Songs of Exile (Helen Chadwick Song Theatre / ROH); The Bacchae (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Headlong); The Bacchae (National Theatre of Scotland / Lincoln Center, Broadway); Fingerprint (ROH2); Critical Mass; Lip (The Shout); Myths and Hymns (Finborough Theatre); Captain Oates’ Left Sock (Royal Court 50th Anniversary); Mercy Fine (Clean Break); The Lion and the Jewel; Trojan Women – Women of Owu (Collective Artistes); The Sleeping Beauty (Young Vic / Barbican / Broadway); Mourning Song (Black Mime); Maskarade (Talawa Theatre Company); Carmen Jones; Ain’t Misbehavin’ (West End).

Television includes: EastEnders; Judge John Deed; Doctors; The Cambridge Spies; The Bill.

Film includes: The Followed.

Radio includes: Death and the King’s Horseman; The Ern & Vern Show; Roots; Solomon Child; Telephone in the Deep Freeze.

As a voice coach, theatre includes: Eclipsed; The Rise & Shine of Comrade Fiasco (Gate Theatre); Lie With Me (Talawa Young People’s Theatre); HAMBA;The Epic Adventure of Nhamo (Tiata Fahodzi).

Hazel has worked as a voice, accent and dialect coach at RADA, ALRA, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and for Tiata Fahodzi.

She completed her MA in Voice Studies at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Theatre includes: Play Mas (Orange Tree Theatre); Guys and Dolls (Chichester Festival Theatre); Matilda (RSC / West End); Smokey Joe's Cafe (Landor Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Birmingham Repertory Theatre); Once on this Island (Hackney Empire); Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Liverpool Playhouse);White Christmas; The Sunshine Boys; Blues in the Night (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Rue Magique (King's Head); Les Miserables (Queen’s Theatre); Daddy Cool (Shaftesbury Theatre); Mary Poppins (Prince Edward Theatre); Fame (national tour); The Little Mermaid; Porgy and Bess (workshops); Three Sisters (rehearsed reading).

Television includes: Casualty; EastEnders.

Film includes: London Road.

Recordings include: Bush Tales; Daddy Cool; Mary Poppins; Matilda.

Melanie was nominated for a 2012 BroadwayWorld.com Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role in Matilda.

Theatre includes: King Charles lll (Wyndham's Theatre); Stone Cold Murder (The Mill at Sonning); NewsRevue (Canal Café Theatre); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Redgrave Theatre, Bristol); The Roaring Girl; A Fatal Secret (Shakespeare’s Globe); Much Ado About Nothing (Tobacco Factory Theatre); Hamlet (Shakespeare in the Forest); All’s Well That Ends Well (West Country tour); Next Door’s Baby; Women and the Vote; Twelfth Night (Orange Tree Theatre), Success Story (Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh / Hen and Chickens Theatre, Islington / Hampstead Theatre); Chasing the Dragon (Birmingham Repertory theatre).

Elinor received the Peter Akerman Award for Best Comedy Actress, and was a semi-finalist for Best New Comedy Act in the Amused Moose and Laughing Horse Awards.

She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Soprano Catherine May was born in Canada, trained in the UK at the Royal Northern College of Music and now lives in Essex with her husband and young son. She has sung with English Touring Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Diva Opera, MidWales Opera, Scottish Opera on tour and in several productions for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden on their Linbury Theatre stage. She has appeared as a soloist at the Royal Albert Hall and Wigmore Hall, and sung with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra, the English Symphony Orchestra, and the Academy of St Thomas, with whom she recently performed and recorded Gliere’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano. She is devoted to the promotion of contemporary music, and to this end is co-director of Blind Tiger Productions, a company dedicated to the development and production of new lyric theatre.

Belinda has worked extensively in theatre , from street theatre, dance and Commedia dell’arte in her youth, to being composer/musical director/musician for theatres such as Shakespeare’s Globe, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

As Musical Director, for the Almeida: King Charles III.

As Soloist, theatre includes: Bacchai (National Theatre).

Television includes: Being Human; Planet Earth; Wolf Hall; House of Saddam; Jane Eyre.

Film includes: Hamlet; River Queen; Brick Lane; Troy; Kingdom of Heaven; Severance; The Merchant of Venice; Around the World in 80 Days; GI Jane; From Hell; Lives of the Saints; The 13^th Warrior; The Cell; Red Planet; Copenhagen.

Belinda is Professor of Medieval Music at London’s Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, and has also taught at The Guildhall School of Music & Drama, The Royal Academy of Music, The Royal College of Music, Newcastle University, Exeter University and The Welsh College of Music & Drama.

Karl Jenkins wrote the vocal solo in his Stabat Mater for Belinda, which she recorded with The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and which she has performed at The Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.

She trained (oboe, recorder and baroque oboe) at The Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Later studies took her through European medieval, renaissance and baroque music, to music of the old Arabic and Ottoman Empires. Belinda has studied Arabic, Arabic vocal and dance styles (MMUS, London University) and Judeo-Spanish song, including extensive fieldwork in Morocco, Spain, Syria, Jordan and Israel. She founded and directs the UK’s busiest medieval ensemble, Joglaresa

Works include: Red Doc›; Antigonick; Nox; If Not, Winter; Fragments of Sappho (translation); The Beauty of the Husband; Men in the Off Hours; Economy of the Unlost; Autobiography of Red; Plainwater: Essays and Poetry; Glass, Irony and God; Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay; Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera; Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (translation).

Carson is a MacArthur Fellow; she has received the Lannan Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and was an Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, Fall 2007.

Anne is a poet, essayist, translator, playwright and classicist. With her background in classical languages, comparative literature, anthropology, history and commercial art, Carson blends ideas and themes from many fields in her writing. She frequently references, modernizes and translates Greek mythology. She has published more than a dozen books, all of which blend the forms of poetry, essay, prose, criticism, translation, dramatic dialogue, fiction and non-fiction.

Classic Stage Company produced three of Carson's translations: Aiskhylos' Agamemnon; Sophokles' Elektra; and Euripides' Orestes (as An Oresteia), in repertory, as part of their 2008/2009 season.

For the Almeida: Venice Preserved; Mrs Gauguin; Hedda Gabler.

Theatre includes: Lives of the Great Poisoners (Second Stride); Insignificance; Tom and Viv (Royal Court); As You Like It (Old Vic).

Opera includes: La Finta Giardinera (Glyndebourne); Ein Reigen (Vienna State Ballet); Tristan und Isolde (Opera National du Rhin); Lohengrin (Welsh National Opera / Polish National Opera); The Importance of Being Earnest (Northern Ireland Opera); L’Enfant et les Sortileges (Bolshoi, Moscow); The Ring Cycle; Manon; King Priam (Nationale Reisopera Holland); Wonderful Town; Rusalka; Queen of Spades; Fiddler on the Roof; Boris Godunov (Grange Park Opera); Maria Stuarda (Opera North); The Knot Garden; Aida; Samson and Dalilah (Scottish Opera).

Antony is the Royal Designer for Industry. He is a member of the British Team of Designers who won the Golden Triga at the 2003 Prague Quadrennale for Ballo in Maschera, Bregenz, and in 1991 for the 1989 RSC Hamlet starring Mark Rylance. Winner of Set Design Award for Opera, International Opera Awards 2013.

Orlando is an associate artist of the Royal Opera House. Orlando Gough writes music mostly for the theatre – operas, plays, dance pieces, musictheatre. He also directs large scale site-specific work, and is the artistic director of the choir The Shout, which he founded in 1998 with Richard Chew.

For the Almeida: Mr Burns.

Recent work includes: the opera Imago, libretto by Stephen Plaice, for Glyndebourne; the opera Road Rage, libretto by Richard Stilgoe,for Garsington Opera; the site-specificpiece Foghorn Requiem, for ships’ horns, brass bandsand the foghorn of the SouterLighthouse, South Shields; thechoral piece Hand over Hand, forthe Hilliard Ensemble, and the songcycle Stroke Odysseys for Derry/Londonderry City of Culture 2013.

He is currently creating a largescalechoral piece Stemmer for the Bergen Festival.

For the Almeida: Ghosts (also West End / BAM);The Dark Earth and the Light Sky;Parlour Song; Rosmersholm; Hedda Gabler; Cloud Nine; The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?; Earth and the Great Weather; The Storm; Venice Preserved; The Winter Guest; The School for Wives.

Theatre includes: Top Hat; Absent Friends; Much Ado About Nothing; The Lion in Winter; The Misanthrope; An Ideal Husband; Carousel; Fiddler on the Roof (West End); The Same Deep Water as Me (Donmar Warehouse); Circle Mirror Transformation; Love and Information; Jumpy; Our Private Life; Sucker Punch; Cock; The Seagull; Drunk Enough to Say I Love You; Dying City (Royal Court); King Kong (Regent Theatre, Melbourne); Betrayal (Sheffield Crucible); The Last of the Duchess (Hampstead Theatre); Testament (Dublin Theatre Festival); A Streetcar Named Desire (Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis); Heartbreak House (Chichester Festival Theatre); Pictures from an Exhibition (Young Vic); Scenes from an Execution; All’s Well That Ends Well; The Hothouse; Exiles (National Theatre).

Opera and dance include: The Damnation of Faust; Lucrezia Borgia; Elegy for Young Lovers; Punch and July (also Geneva); Bluebeard’s Castle; Madam Butterfly (English National Opera); Faster; E=MC² (Birmingham Royal Ballet); Pelleas and Melisande (Mariinsky); The Soldier’s Tale; Pierrot Lunaire (Chicago Symphony); Madama Butterfly; Faust; Carmen; Peter Grimes; 125th Gala (New York Met); Eugene Onegin (LA Opera / Royal Opera House); Passion (Minnesota Opera); La Cenerentola(Glyndebourne);
Carmen (also set design); Petrushka (Scottish Ballet); Il Trovatore (Paris); Fidelio; Two Widows; Don Giovanni; The Ring (Scottish Opera); The Midsummer Marriage (Chicago Lyric Opera); The Bartered Bride (Royal Opera House).

Peter received the 1995 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance for The Glass Blew In (Siobahn Davies) and Fearful Symmetries (Royal Ballet), the 2003 Olivier Lighting Award for The Bacchai (National Theatre), the Knight of Illumination Award in 2010 for Sucker Punch (Royal Court) and the Helpmann Award for Best Lighting for King Kong in 2013. He is currently directing/designing a concert version of The Ring Cycle for Opera North.

For the Almeida: Little Revolution;King Charles III (also West End); American Psycho: A new musical thriller; When the Rain Stops Falling; There Came a Gypsy Riding; Enemies; Festen (also West End / Broadway).

Recent Theatre includes: Wonder.land; Everyman;The Hard Problem; Behind the Beautiful Forevers; Great Britain; King Lear; NT 50;Edward II; The Magistrate; Collaborators; London Road (National Theatre); Skylight; The Audience (West End & Broadway); Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; (West End); The Scottsboro Boys (also West End); Feast; Three Sisters; The Changeling (Young Vic); One Man, Two Guvnors (National Theatre / West End / Broadway / UK and international tour); Red Velvet (Tricycle Theatre / New York); In the Republic of Happiness; In Basildon (Royal Court).

Opera and ballet include: Dr Dee (Manchester International Festival /English National Opera); A Ring, A Lamp, A Thing (Royal Opera House); The Most Incredible Thing (Sadler’s Wells).

Paul received a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award and an Olivier Award for Billy Elliot, Tony nominations for One Man, Two Guvnors in 2012 and Mary Stuart in 2009, an Evening Standard Award for Festen, an Olivier Award for Saint Joan and a Drama Desk Award for The Pillowman.

From Gillie’s practice of dance and choreography emerge artworks that manifest as performances, texts, and events, presented in contexts associated with dance, theatre, live art and experimental performance, throughout the UK and across Europe. Gillie is one of a group of artists who write for, edit and organise the activities of BELLYFLOP Magazine. She has worked in a range of education and community contexts for more than a decade, and has moonlit as an Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England since 2010. Gillie was supported by Artsadmin’s Artists’ Bursary Scheme in 2013-4 and received the danceWEB scholarship in 2008 and 2013. She is an AHRC/TECHNE funded PhD researcher at Roehampton University.

Lindy is a music director, vocal coach, and pianist working in contemporary opera, theatre, and music theatre. She has conducted several world premieres, including operas by Anne Dudley, Julian Philips and Evangelia Rigaki, and was the music director for EXPOSURE, a new opera cabaret scratch night at the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House. She has been engaged as music staff by, among others, English National Opera, Aldeburgh Productions, Glyndebourne Productions and Scottish Opera, and many West End musicals. Lindy made her Wigmore Hall début accompanying Anne Murray, DBE, and is one half of the prize-winning longfordbrown piano duo. In 2014, she co-founded Blind Tiger Productions, a company dedicated to creating and producing new opera and music theatre.

For the Almeida: King Charles III.

As Director, theatre includes: The Box (Latitude / Theatre Delicatessen); The Itinerant Music Hall (Lyric Hammersmith / Watford Palace / GDIF / Latitude); Jekyll & Hyde (Southwark Playhouse / Assembly Edinburgh); Pagan Parade (Les Enfants Terribles / Latitude); Punch (Underbelly); Halloween (UNICEF / Look Left Look Right); Notes From Underground (Etcetera Theatre); Chicken Skin (site specific); FOUND! (Old Vic Tunnels). She has also directed short pieces for the Arcola, Theatre503 and the Bush Theatre.

As Assistant Director, theatre includes: The Trench; Marvellous Imaginary Menagerie; Anyone For Tea? (Les Enfants Terribles); In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) (Theatre Royal Bath / St James Theatre); The Double, Red Light Winter (Theatre Royal Bath).

Jessica is a freelance director and Artistic Director of Flipping the Bird. She read English at Oxford and trained with Theatre Royal Bath and Les Enfants Terribles as Resident Assistant Director.

For the Almeida: A Delicate Balance; Judgment Day; The Triumph of Love.

Theatre includes: The Father (Tricycle/Theatre Royal Bath); The Wolf from the Door; Circle Mirror Transformation; Love and Information; Cock; Drunk Enough to Say I Love You; Dying City; Fewer Emergencies; Lucky Dog; Blood; Blasted; 4.48 Psychosis (also European tour/US tour); Hard Fruit; Real Classy Affair; Cleansed; Bailegangaire; Harry and Me; Simpatico; Blasted; Peaches; Thyestes; Hammett’s Apprentice; The Terrible Voice of Satan (Royal Court); Roots (Donmar Warehouse); #aiww - The Arrest of Ai Weiwei (Hampstead); And No More Shall We Part (Hampstead/Traverse, Edinburgh); Love and Information; Cock; King Lear; The Book of Grace; Drunk Enough to Say I Love You; Top Girls; Dying City; A Number (New York); John Gabriel Borkman (Abbey, Dublin/New York); Dido Queen of Carthage; The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other; Exiles (National Theatre); Glengarry Glen Ross; The Changing Room (West End); Troilus und Cressida; Die Kopien (Schaubuehne Berlin); 4.48 Psychose (Burgtheater Vienna); The Tempest; Roberto Zucco (RSC); Love’s Labour’s Lost; Richard II (Manchester Royal Exchange); The Rivals (Nottingham Playhouse); The Crackwalker (Gate); The Seagull (Sheffield Theatres); Miss Julie (Oldham Coliseum); Juno and the Paycock; Ice Cream and Hot Fudge; Romeo and Juliet; Fool for Love; Savage/Love; Master Harold and the Boys (Contact Theatre); Prem (Battersea Arts Centre/Soho Poly).

Opera includes: A Ring A Lamp A Thing (Linbury); Eugene Onegin; Rigoletto (Welsh National Opera); Die Zauberflöte (Garsington); Wolf Club Village; Night Banquet (Almeida Opera); Oedipus Rex; Survivor from Warsaw (Manchester Royal Exchange/Hallé); Lives of the Great Poisoners (Second Stride).

Film includes: A Number.

James was an Associate Director at the Royal Court from 1992 to 2006 and a NESTA fellow from 2003 to 2006.