Finborough Theatre

finboroughforum - a monthly discussion forum, bringing artistic practitioners and voices from various other disciplines together to challenge the practice and meaning of theatre.

Monday, 2 April 2007
Theatre or Religion: Who’s Changing The World?

Chaired by Jack Klaff

Members of the Panel
Neal Foster
Reverend Romilly Janes
Sue Parrish
Andrew Reed

Produced by Finborough Theatre Development Producer Marie Bobin.

Jack Klaff
Jack Klaff is a writer/performer. He has held visiting professorships at Princeton University and at Starlab, a Brussels-based think tank. He edits Shebang, a science and culture magazine, is helping establish Frontier TV and has written and presented for all media. Jack’s recent stage appearances have been as the Blind Man in Carver, as Claudius, as Toby Belch, as the Cardinal in The Representative and as Bohr in Copenhagen. Other credits include RSC and West End seasons, Star Wars, For Your Eyes Only, King David, Vanity Fair, Road Rage and Last Duel. His one-man shows have won several awards.

Neal Foster
Neal is the Actor/Manager of The Birmingham Stage Company which he founded in 1992 after leaving The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. The company is a unique success story in British theatre, not least because it is run by an actor and relies for 97% of its income from the box office. Since 1992, the Birmingham Stage Company has staged over fifty productions, most recently Proof (Arts Theatre), as well as Horrible Histories and Danny The Champion of The World (National Tour). Neal was made Fellow of The Birmingham Society for outstanding contribution to the quality of life in the city of Birmingham.

Reverend Romilly Janes
Reverend Romilly Janes is the minister of the Memorial Baptist Church Plaistow in East London where he has served for twelve years. He chairs the council of Radius, the Religious Drama Society of Great Britain and is a regular contributor to their journal Radius Performing. Romilly has shared with others in encouraging children and young people to explore their faith through drama in the context of worship, workshop and performance.

Sue Parrish
Sue has been the Artistic Director of Sphinx Theatre Company since 1990. Sphinx has recently celebrated its 30th anniversary with a round of events including a six-week run of a major exhibition at the National Theatre, and a ceremony at the Theatre Museum to mark the gift of the company archives. Sue has run Writers’ Workshops at the Half Moon Theatre, Soho Theatre, Shaw Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, for Womens’ Playhouse Trust and Sphinx. She has also directed several productions for the City of London Festival (Guildhall Great Hall) including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet and The Tempest. For the past eight years, she has produced a major theatre conference - The Glass Ceiling - held annually at the ICA and the National Theatre, examining women’s presence in the arts.

Andrew Reed
Andrew has been a Methodist Local Preacher for eleven years. He is currently studying part time at the South East Institute of Theological Education and hopes to enter full time Ministry in the near future. He has spoken regularly at organised evangelical open-air meetings in Trafalgar Square since 1971.

Monday, 21 May 2007
Verse in Theatre: outdated and elitist?

Chaired by
Jack Klaff

Members of the Panel
Glyn Maxwell
Cordelia Monsey
Donnacadh O’Briain

Produced by Finborough Theatre Development Producer Marie Bobin.

Glyn Maxwell
Glyn has won several awards for his poetry, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for The Nerve in 2003 and the E.M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His plays have been staged in London, Edinburgh and New York. The Lifeblood was British Theatre Guide Play of the Fringe at Edinburgh in 2004, and Broken Journey (Hen and Chickens) was a Time Out Critics’ Choice. Other productions include The Forever Waltz (Hen and Chickens and New York 2005), The Best Man (Edinburgh and Tour 2004) and Wolfpit (New York 2006). The Man of Terror will tour the UK in 2008. His novel The Girl Who Was Going To Die will be published in 2008. He has also written opera libretti and criticism. He is the poetry editor of the US journal The New Republic and divides his time between Sussex and New York.

Cordelia Monsey
Recent work includes Associate Director to Peter Hall on Waiting for Godot (Theatre Royal Bath 2005/6 and West End 2006); and to Trevor Nunn on We Happy Few (West End 2004). Previous work with Peter Hall includes Bacchai (National Theatre and Epidavros), Amadeus (Old Vic and Los Angeles) and Associate Director on the Peter Hall Season at the Old Vic. Cordelia has worked as an Assistant Director at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Drama school productions include A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing (Guildhall), Whale (RADA), and As You Like It (Central). Directing credits include Home and Private Lives for Platforms 2000 (National Theatre), Anna on Anna by Adrian Mitchell (Edinburgh Festival and Offstage Downstairs), and Betrayal (Leatherhead). Cordelia is currently the Associate Producer on the Peter Hall 2007 season at the Bath Theatre Royal, Associate Director on Pygmalion and Director on Athol Fugard’s new play Victory with Richard Johnson.

Donnacadh O’Briain
Donnacadh is a freelance theatre director, currently working as Assistant Director to Michael Boyd on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Histories project. As director productions include adaptations of Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Mystero Buffo and Blue Velvet. New work includes Don’t Take Your Coat Off, Kilt and Hush. As Assistant Director, productions include The Histories and The Canterbury Tales (Royal Shakespeare Company), A Christmas Carol, Waiting for Godot and The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (Gate Theatre, Dublin). Donnacadh recently won the inaugural Better Bankside Shakespeare Award and will be co-directing a production of Richard III this autumn, which will open the new Southwark Playhouse. From October, he will spend six months as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s associate fellow at Warwick University’s Capital Centre.

Monday, 25 June 2007
Do plays based on historical fact have a responsibility to tell the whole truth?

Chaired by
Kate Wasserberg

Members of the Panel:
Gavin Birch
James Graham
Tom Kempinski
Nirjay Mahindru

Produced by Finborough Theatre Development Producer Marie Bobin.

Gavin Birch
Gavin has previously worked as historical researcher, author and staff member at London’s Imperial War Museum and for Hampshire County Museum Services for over ten years. With three photographic reference books published and research on the Great War conducted for the Rt Hon John Hutton MP, he is a member of the British Commission for Military History and a member of the Society of Authors. He holds an Hons degree in War Studies and Post-Grad qualifications in Museum Studies from Leicester University.

James Graham
James Graham is Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre. Little Madam is James's third play commissioned by the Finborough Theatre, following Albert's Boy (2005), starring Victor Spinetti, which earned James a prestigious Pearson Award bursary, and Eden's Empire (2006). His third Finborough Theatre commissioned play – Little Madam – on Margaret Thatcher will open in October. James was the Finborough Theatre’s nomination to the BBC and Royal Court’s programme for young writers, ‘The 50’, celebrating the Royal Court’s 50th anniversary.

Tom Kempinski
Tom Kempinski’s work has been produced in England since the late 70’s. Duet for One, later adapted into a screenplay, was first produced in London before being seen on Broadway as well as on tour in several countries. His body of work often based on historical events and figures includes Dreyfus, Mayakovsky, Life of Karl Marx, Pageant of Labour History, Moscow Trials and The English Civil War.

Nirjay Mahindru
A professional actor for many years, his plays include Mandragora King of India, The Bottle and The Hot Zone. He has written for the BBC’s Radio Drama Silver Street, was a winner of a new playwriting competition for his play The Asian Monologue and was the recipient of a Stage One New Producers Bursary in 2005. He is the founder and producer for Conspirators’ Kitchen Theatre, set up to promote new writing.

Peter Whelan
Peter Whelan’s work includes seven plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company including Captain Swing, The Bright and Bold Design, The School of Night, The Accrington Pals and The Herbal Bed.

Monday, 30 July 2007
Theatre and the Olympics: Value for money?

Chaired by
Jack Klaff

Members of the Panel
Mark O’Thomas
Emma Stenning
Nick Sweeting

Produced by Finborough Theatre Development Producer Marie Bobin.

Mark O’Thomas
Mark is Director of IPAD (Institute for the Performing Arts Development) at the University of East London, whose campuses sit in the hub of London’s new Olympic zone. As a playwright, Mark has had plays produced by Soho Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, Birmingham Rep and Bristol Old Vic. He also works as a script advisor and translator for the Royal Court Theatre, which has produced and published a number of his translations. Mark is on the board of UEL’s London East Research Institute commissioned by the Greater London Authority to write the report Lasting Legacy for London? Assessing the Legacy of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. He is also on the board of the East End musical hall theatre Hoxton Hall and is the Creative Director for the recently established East London Theatre Archive project. His show about the life of Chet Baker premieres at the London Jazz Festival in November.

Emma Stenning
Emma Stenning is Head of Theatre for Arts Council England, London, a position she has held since January 2007. Previously, over the past two years, Emma worked flexibly between a Fellowship with the Clore Leadership Programme, as a Cultural Ceremonies Advisor with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, and as Executive Producer with her production company Schtanhaus, in partnership with Tom Morris, working primarily in mid scale touring and on commission from the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of the Complete Works Festival.
From 2002–2005, Emma was Executive Director of BAC, through 2001 was administrator at Complicite delivering world tours of Mnemonic and The Noise of Time, and from 1999–2000 was producer at Oxford Stage Company (now Headlong).
Emma has been a Trustee of the Royal and Derngate in Northhampton, was recipient of a Stage One producer’s Bursary, and is a graduate of both the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Executive Programme for Not for Profit Leadership in the Arts, and Common Purpose 20:20.

Nick Sweeting
Starting a freelance career with a short spell at the Chicago International Theatre Festival in 1993, Nick worked with a broad range of national and international companies, including the David Glass Ensemble, Phoenix Dance, LipService, Wierzalin Theatre (Poland), Nada Theatre (France) and Mouthpeace (South Africa). Since the mid 1990’s he has played a key role in the development of Told by an Idiot and Stan’s Café. In 1995 he co-founded Improbable and over the last few years has concentrated more and more on his work there, as they tour more widely, working in collaboration with a series of key presenting partners in Europe and North America.

Monday, 24 September 2007
What’s in a Name? Theatre and Celebrity

Chaired by
Jack Klaff

Members of the Panel
Andrew Haydon
Arabella Neville-Rolfe
Rachael Stevens

Produced by Andrew Haydon

Andrew Haydon
Andrew Haydon is freelance theatre critic, commissioning editor (theatre) at the Institute of Ideas’ online reviews publication, Culture Wars, and is co-editor of the audio-website TheatreVoice.com. He is a regular guest on 18 Doughty Street‘s Culture Clash and has reviewed plays for Matthew Wright’s Weekender show on BBC Radio 2. He also script-reads for several London theatres including the Royal Court. His book Raw Talent: 50 Years of the National Student Drama Festival is published by Oberon. He regularly posts on issues in the arts on his blog Postcards from the Gods. Andrew is the new producer of the finboroughforum.

Arabella Neville-Rolfe
Arabella is currently working for one of the leading West End PR companies, looking after the press and publicity for many of the big West End shows and the celebrites therein! She has previously worked at the Edinburgh Fringe, the National Student Theatre Festival and worked on shows at London fringe venues such as the BAC, The King's Head, and the Man in the Moon.

Rachael Stevens
Rachael has over ten years experience in arts management, spanning the areas of literary management, education, development, PR and marketing. Public relations work includes the promotion of major West End musicals, opera and ballet for such producers as Really Useful Group, Cameron Mackintosh and Raymond Gubbay. She joined The Old Vic when Kevin Spacey was appointed Artistic Director, created the New Voices Club in 2005 and produces The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices and the US/UK Exchange with New York. She also markets The 24 Hour Plays Celebrity Gala Fundraiser and works alongside the Old Vic producers to cast mainstage projects.

Monday, 22 October 2007
The Novel on Stage: Adaptation or Bastardisation?

Chaired by Jack Klaff

The panellists will include (subject to availability):
Chris Campbell – Deputy Literary Manager at the National Theatre
Ian Shuttleworth – Theatre Critic of the Financial Times and editor of Theatre Record.
James Graham - Playwright. Author of Little Madam

Produced by Andrew Haydon.

Chris Campbell
Christopher has translated plays for the National Theatre, The Almeida, The Donmar, The Young Vic, Hampstead Theatre and The Gate. As an actor, he has worked at theatres including The National, The Royal Court, The Gate, The Old Vic, The Traverse (Edinburgh), The West Yorkshire Playhouse and The Birmingham Rep. Directors have included Sir Peter Hall, Sir Richard Eyre, Howard Davies, Richard Wilson, Erica Whyman, William Gaskill, Ian Brown, Annie Castledine and Stephen Unwin. Christopher formerly chaired the reading panel at The National Theatre and is currently their Deputy Literary Manager.

Ian Shuttleworth
Senior theatre critic of the Financial Times and editor and publisher of Theatre Record magazine. Other writing include an essay in the critical companion Reading The Vampire Slayer. He has adapted a number of novels for the stage.