Directing

Recent work includes the musical Armour: a herstory of the Scottish Bard by Shonagh Murray (Òran Mór/Traverse Edinburgh/Ayr Gaiety/OneRen); Who Pays the Piper by Jen McGregor (A Play A Pie and a Pint, Òran Mór); the musicals A Little Night Music and Big Fish (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland MA Musical Theatre at Assembly Music Hall, Edinburgh); The Yellow Club (a multi-artform version of Twelfth Night) and Curiouser and Curiouser (inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels), each of which involved casts of over a hundred performers, for RCS Junior Conservatoire; Part of the Picture, a play-with-songs, based on interviews with North Sea oil workers (as writer and director, Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh); Gianni Schicchi (Opera Bohemia, Scottish Tour); Brecht’s play-with-songs The Visions of Simone Machard (Hackney Empire and tour); N. C. Hunter’s play A Day by the Sea and the UK premiere of Adam Guettel’s song cycle Myths and Hymns (both Finborough Theatre, London); the Kander and Ebb revue The World Goes Round and a devised musical, The Great Exam Cabaret (both Wild Cabaret, Glasgow); L’Antologia di Spoon River, a devised, promenade performance in a ruined monastery, and Stefano Benni’s play Astaroth (both for Rapallo Festival, Italy); La Traviata (UK tour); La bohème (Clyde Opera Group); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Blenheim Palace Gardens); Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Upstairs at the Gatehouse) and Judith: a parting from the body (Pleasance, London). I also directed large-scale community productions of Henry IV part one and Henry IV part two (York Shakespeare Project).

NEW WORK

I’ve also worked in dramaturgy and the development of new work. For a number of years I was a member of the script reading panels of the Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre, Theatre 503, the Royal Court Young Writers’ Programme and the King’s Cross New Writing Award. I’ve also worked with individual writers to develop plays, on behalf of various theatres, and independently. I curated a series of staged readings for the Union Theatre, Southwark, worked as Literary Associate (musical theatre) for the Finborough Theatre, and for a time read musical libretti for the Donmar Warehouse.

ASSISTANT DIRECTING

As an assistant director, I’ve worked for the Young Vic Theatre London, the Haymarket Theatre Basingstoke, English National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera North, assisting directors including Benedict Andrews, Phyllida Lloyd, John Adams, David Pountney and John Fulljames.

In the real world…

Over the years, alongside theatre directing, I’ve also worked (with varying degrees of cheerfulness) as the receptionist of a methadone clinic (North Islington Drug Service); as part of the admin team for the Secretary of State for the Environment in Westminster; as a pizza chef; as a marker for GCSE RE exam papers; as the tour manager for an amazing experimental choir (The Shout); and as sound operator for the UK tour of a play that - when we did ‘track changes’ on the Word document - turned out to have been stolen and entirely plagiarised, with just the character names, title and author’s name changed.

BACKGROUND

I grew up in Poole, Dorset. We swam in the sea a lot. I was a member of the National Youth Theatre in London, and worked in a primary school in the Middle East for a year before university. I studied BA (hons) English and Philosophy (University of York, 1999-2002), then did an MA in Directing for Theatre (Goldsmiths College, London, 2003). I later did the M.Ed Learning and Teaching in the Performing Arts (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, 2019). I was awarded Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2012, and Senior Fellowship in 2020.