Kenneth Branagh in King Lear by William Shakespeare

Rob Ashford is a Tony Award, Olivier Award, Emmy Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award–winning director and choreographer. Broadway theater credits include Frozen on Broadway, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Evita (Tony nom.), How To Succeed (Tony noms. for Direction and Choreography), Promises, Promises (Tony nom.), Thoroughly Modern Millie (Tony Award for Best Choreography), Shrek, John Waters’s Cry Baby (Tony nom., Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Fred Astaire Awards), Curtains (Tony nom.), and Wedding Singer (Tony nom.).

Other credits include The Entertainer (Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company), Romeo and Juliet (Kenneth Branagh), The Winter’s Tale (Kenneth Branagh; Olivier nom. for Best Direction), Harlequinade (Kenneth Branagh), Macbeth (Park Avenue Armory, New York/Manchester International Festival), and the Olivier Award–winning productions of Anna Christie, A Streetcar Named Desire (Olivier nom. for Best Revival), and Parade (all Donmar Warehouse, Olivier Noms. Direction & Choreography). Ashford also directed The Barber of Seville for Chicago Lyric Opera and LA Opera, Carmen for Chicago Lyric and Houston Grand Opera, Carousel for Chicago Lyric and Houston Grand Opera, and choreographed Candide at Théatre du Châtelet, Paris; La Scala, Milan; and ENO, London.

He choreographed and staged the 2015 Academy Awards with Neil Patrick Harris, the 2014 Academy Awards with Ellen DeGeneres, and the 2013 Academy Awards with Seth MacFarlane. Ashford won the Emmy for Best Choreography for his work on Baz Luhrmann’s 2009 Academy Awards production number featuring Hugh Jackman and Beyoncé. Ashford has also choreographed the opening number for the Tony Awards for nine years, which includes hosts Neil Patrick Harris (4), Sean Hayes, Kevin Spacey, Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles, and James Corden (2). He has staged tributes at the Kennedy Center Honors for Barbra Streisand, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jerry Herman, Barbara Cook, Tom Hanks, Shirley MacLaine, and Meryl Streep.

Films include choreography for Death on the Nile, Disney’s Cinderella, Ted 2, A Million Ways To Die in the West, Beyond The Sea, and The Deb. He was Kenneth Branagh’s directing associate for Murder on the Orient Express.

Originally trained in Music at Oxford University and Royal Academy of Music, Jon Bausor retrained on the Motley Theatre Design Course graduating as a Linbury Prize finalist in 2000. Since then he has designed extensively in dance, opera, and theater for companies worldwide including The Royal Opera House, Royal National Theatre, London, National Theatre of Scotland, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Young Vic, London, Theatre de Complicité, and both Finnish and Norwegian National Ballets. An associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he has designed numerous productions including Hamlet, King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, and the entire 2012 season. He designed the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London and has recently been nominated for an Emmy Award for his production design for the Red Bull film Human Pinball.

Theater credits include the stage version of Miyazaki’s legendary anime film Spirited Away (Toho, Japan/London Coliseum); Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods directed by Terry Gilliam (Theatre Royal, Bath); Bat Out of Hell (London/ Germany/Toronto/New York/Las Vegas); WICKED (Stage Entertainment, Hamburg); The James Plays (National Theatre of Scotland/Royal National Theatre/World Tour); Ghost Stories (West End/Toronto/Moscow/Melbourne); MAMETZ (National Theatre of Wales, winner Best Design UK Theatre Awards); and You For Me For You (Royal Court, Best Design, Evening Standard Awards).

Dance credits include The Nutcracker (Norwegian National Ballet, Nationale Ballet de Bordeaux), designs for Ballet Rambert, the Royal Opera House, Nederlands Dans Theater, and works by Liam Scarlett for the Royal Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet, and English National Ballet.

Opera credits include Ainadamar (Metropolitan Opera); Serse, The Golden Dragon, Rigoletto, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Halle Opera); Cendrillon (Glyndebourne); Die Walküre (Bordeaux National Opera); The Knot Garden (Theatre an der Wien); The Lighthouse (Montepulciano); and Agrippina (Grange Park Opera).

Lucy Bevan’s film credits include Barbie, A Haunting in Venice, Belfast, The Batman, Matilda the Musical, Death on the Nile, Cruella, The Dig, Ready Player One, The Old Guard, The Good Liar, All Is True, Murder on the Orient Express, and Atomic Blonde. TV includes Masters of the Air, Disclaimer, All the Light We Cannot See, 1899, Anatomy of a Scandal, and Collateral. Theater credits include Hamlet for KBTC at RADA, Kenneth Branagh theater season 2015 – 16: The Winter’s Tale, Harlequinade/All On Her Own, Romeo & Juliet, The Painkiller, and The Entertainer.

Emily Brockmann’s film credits include Belfast, Matilda the Musical, Death on the Nile, Cruella, Ready Player One, The Old Guard, The Good Liar, All Is True, Murder on the Orient Express, and Atomic Blonde. TV includes Senna, Disclaimer, All the Light We Cannot See, 1899, Anatomy of a Scandal, and Collateral. Theater credits include Hamlet for KBTC at RADA, Kenneth Branagh theater season 2015 – 16: The Winter’s Tale, Harlequinade/All On Her Own, Romeo & Juliet, The Painkiller, and The Entertainer.

Kenneth Branagh’s theater credits as director include John Sessions’s The Life of Napoleon, Twelfth Night, The Play What I Wrote, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, and Hamlet. Film credits as director include Henry V, Dead Again, Much Ado About Nothing, Swan Song, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Hamlet, Thor, Cinderella, Murder on the Orient Express, All Is True, Death on the Nile, Belfast, A Haunting in Venice, and The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde.

Aletta Collins is a director and choreographer working internationally in theater, opera, and ballet. As a choreographer, credits include West Side Story for the Royal Exchange Manchester, the first professional UK staging to feature new choreography; The Boy in the Dress (RSC); A Very Expensive Poison (Old Vic); The Twilight Zone (Almeida/West End); The Hairy Ape (The Old Vic/Park Avenue Armory); The Effect and His Dark Materials (National Theatre); and Anna Nicole (ROH/BAM). As a director: It’s a Wonderful Life (ENO); Hippolyte et Aricie (Berlin Staatsoper); Coraline (ROH); If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me (Young Vic); La Cenerentola and La Fanciulla del West (Opera North); and Carmen (Salzburg Festival). Collins studied at the London Contemporary Dance School and is a former associate artist at the Royal Opera House where her work included choreographing and directing Blue Moon, The Red Balloon, Cocteau Voices, and Magical Night in the Linbury Theatre. Other recent dance commissions include The days run away like wild horses and Awakenings (Rambert), and Maybe Yes Maybe, Maybe No Maybe (Phoenix Dance Company). Her short film, The Girl in the Red Dress, starring Shirley Henderson, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight and many festivals including Edinburgh and London. She also choreographed Belfast, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Nina Dunn is an award-winning video and projection designer who has created work for a wide range of shows internationally. She is the creative director at PixelLux and an educator within the industry.

Theater credits include The Shark is Broken (West End and Broadway); Burlesque Musical (UK Tour); Orfeo-Dido (Grange Festival Opera); Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (Shanghai Ballet); Spitting Image Live, Bonnie & Clyde, City of Angels, No Man’s Land, and Cookies (West End); 9 to 5 The Musical (West End, UK and Australian tour, Daegu International Festival, Korea); Othello, Manor, and Emperor & Galilean (Royal National Theatre); L’Orfeo, Der Freischütz, and Macbeth (Wiener Staatsoper); Don Quixote and Lazuli Sky (Birmingham Royal Ballet); Seven Deadly Sins and Bluebeard’s Castle (Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires); A Museum in Baghdad, Venice Preserved, Miss Littlewood, The Seven Acts of Mercy, and Volpone (Royal Shakespeare Company); Hamlet and The Mountaintop (Young Vic); The Trials (Donmar Warehouse); Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Shedding a Skin (Soho Theatre); Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella (Imagine Theatre); Plenty, Copenhagen, Fiddler on the Roof, and Forty Years On (Chichester Festival Theatre); Spring Gala and Christmas at ROH (Royal Opera House); Phantom of the Opera (UK, US, and Australian tour); and The Rocky Horror Show (European tour).

Awards include Best Video Design for Bonnie & Clyde (Broadway World UK), Best Video and Electronic Content for Alice’s Adventures Underground (Knight of Illumination), Best Design for Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast (UK Pantomime Association Awards), and a nomination for Best Video Design for The Shark Is Broken (WhatsOnStage).

Paul Keogan’s recent lighting designs include Ainadamar and Gondoliers/Utopia Ltd (Scottish Opera); The Steward of Christendom, Constellations, The Visiting Hour, Hamlet, and The Snapper (Gate Theatre, Dublin); Translations (Abbey Theatre, Dublin and Lyric Theatre, Belfast); Tales from the Holywell, Portia Coughlan, and On Raftery’s Hill (Abbey Theatre, Dublin); Elektra (also set design, Irish National Opera); Scandaltown, Love Love Love Love, and The Plough and the Stars (Lyric Hammersmith); Doubt (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Naked Hand, Shirley Valentine, Double Cross, and Here Comes the Night (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); Happy Days, Blood in the Dirt, and Postcards from the Ledge (Landmark Theatre Productions, Ireland); and Cyprus Avenue (Abbey Theatre, MAC Belfast, Public Theatre NYC, Royal Court).

Ben & Max Ringham’s composition and sound design credits in theater include Dr. Strangelove (West End), Romeo and Juliet (West End), An Enemy Of The People (West End), Prima Facie (West End, Broadway, Nominated for Best Sound Design at the Tony Awards 2023), A Doll’s House (Broadway, Nominated for Best Sound Design at the Tony Awards 2023, Drama Desk Best Sound Design Winner 2023), Cyrano de Bergerac (West End, BAM NYC, Drama Desk Best Sound Design Winner), Betrayal (West End/Broadway), and Blindness (Donmar, Daryl Roth Theatre, Los Metros Award Winner, Mexico). As creators: Exemplar (radio series written for BBC Radio 4), Reflections (2 Temple Place), ANNA (Created for National Theatre, Olivier Award Nomination, Best Sound Design), The Return (directed for ETT), Curse of the Crackles (created for STH), and Looking For Nigel (BBC R and D.)

Lucy Skilbeck was the director of actor training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for 10 years and now leads on their external collaborative projects. She directed many productions at RADA and has extensive experience teaching and directing in UK and Australian drama schools.

Professional credits include Whistle Down the Wind (children’s director); The Beautiful Game (resident director); Bombay Dreams, West End and Broadway (associate director), for Really Useful Group. She was associate director for the Lyric Theatre and West End production of Spring Awakening the Musical and directed the non-Equity tour in the US. For Fiery Angel, she was associate director of 39 Steps and for the National Theatre she was associate director of Rose Tattoo and directed a new work, Hebron. For Wayne Harrison productions, she directed Too Far to Walk and Man in the Middle. She directed the new musical The Rose and the Ring for Brave New World productions, and her production of Mrs. Roosevelt Flies to London has been on tour for 10 years.

As artistic director of Blue Tongue Theatre Company, Skilbeck directed Wolf Lullaby; Sweet Phoebe; Stretch of the Imagination; and produced Mr. Melancholy and The Recruit.

She has directed galas including for the Prince’s Trust, for the now King Charles and Queen Camilla, and at the National Theatre.

Additionally, Skilbeck works with RADA Business, running executive coaching sessions, and she is a member of the High-Performance Roundtable. Skilbeck has worked with sporting organizations including UK Sport and Sport England, the Premier League, the Football Association, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, and Leaders in Sport sharing performance coaching strategies and running leadership and coaching training. She is a qualified equine-facilitated psychotherapist and a member of the Actor Wellbeing Facilitators Collective (AWFC) and the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists (NCIP).

Issy Snape is a director and writer from London working in theater and film. Most recently, she worked as script editor and assistant to the director on Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming film, The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde, continuing her work in script research and development with TKBC. Snape returns to her role as assistant director on King Lear in the West End.

Since graduating from the University of Cambridge, where she directed extensively at the ADC Theatre, Snape co-directed and wrote the critically acclaimed Cicada 3301 at the Edinburgh Fringe; directed Mojola Akinyemi’s imaginary natural beings at Vault Festival; and was runner-up for the Les Enfants Terribles award.

Before university, she trained as an emerging director at the North Wall Arts Centre and directed Alistair McDowall’s Zero For The Young Dudes! at the Lyric Hammersmith as part of The National Theatre Connections Festival.

Emma Woodvine’s theater credits include King Lear (Wyndham’s Theatre); As You Like It, Cymbeline, Imperium, Richard II, Henry IV Parts I and II, Henry V, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Sacrifice (RSC); Ghosts, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe); Word Play, Pigs and Dogs, Routes (Royal Court); A Little Night Music, Street Scene, Kiss Me Kate, Carousel (Opera North); Fun Home, The Scottsboro Boys, Wings, Happy Days, Galileo, A Season in the Congo, A Doll’s House (Young Vic); The Trials (Donmar); Machinal (Almeida Theatre); Gypsy, Twelfth Night (Royal Exchange Manchester); 2 Billion Heartbeats, Blood Knot (Orange Tree Theatre); Fisherman’s Friends the Musical (Tour); The Winter’s Tale, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Macbeth (Cheek by Jowl); Beautiful: the Carole King Musical (Tour); and Ghost the Musical (West End). Film credits include Mayday (Apple TV), Widow Clicquot (Vertical), “Demon 79”: Black Mirror (Netflix), Cyrano (Warner Bros.), Darkest Hour (Working Title), and Christopher and His Kind (BBC).

Wakana Yoshihara mainly works in the film industry. She has collaborated with leading directors and actors in the business. Recent credits include The Marvels (Disney), LOKI season two (Disney), A Haunting in Venice (20th Century Studio), Spencer (NEON), Belfast (Focus/Universal), and Death On The Nile (20th Century Studio). She has recently designed King Lear, directed by Kenneth Branagh (Wyndham Theatre).

Bret Yount’s recent theater credits include Dr. Strangelove (Noel Coward); Abigail’s Party (Theatre Royal, Stratford East); A View From the Bridge (Theatre Royal, Haymarket); The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (Chichester); The Birthday Party and 1984 (Theatre Royal, Bath); Machinal (Old Vic); Between Riverside and Crazy and The Harmony Test (Hampstead Theatre); Closure (Theatre Royal, Windsor); The Hungry Body (Donmar Warehouse); My Beautiful Laundrette (Curve, Leicester); The Hunt (Almeida Theatre/St Ann’s); Cruel Intentions (The Other Palace); The Witches (Olivier, National Theatre); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Crucible (Gielgud); Hope Has a Happy Meal (Royal Court Upstairs); A Little Life (Harold Pinter/Savoy); Village Idiots (Nottingham Playhouse/Stratford East); Akebah (Hampstead Theatre); Dirty Dancing (Dominion Theatre/National Tour); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Theatre Royal, Bath); Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic); Bad Jews (Arts Theatre); two Palestinians go dogging and The Glow (Royal Court); Force Majeure, Teenage Dick, Appropriate, and Europe (Donmar Warehouse); Spring Awakening, The Hunt, and Dance Nation (Almeida); Much Ado About Nothing and The Magician’s Elephant (RSC); The Crucible, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Jack Absolute, and The Normal Heart (Olivier Award; National Theatre); The Cherry Orchard and Hamlet (Theatre Royal Windsor); Girl from the North Country (Old Vic/West End/National Tour); and After the End (Theatre Royal, Stratford East).