Writer. Director. Producer. Coach.

About

I am a writer and director for theatre, opera and film, and an executive coach. I am the co-founder, Artistic Director & Chief Executive of OperaUpClose, an Olivier Award-winning, national and international touring production company. I have written and directed extensively for OperaUpClose since 2009, working on canonical repertoire, new commissions and family productions, in UK theatres including Soho Theatre, the Kiln Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Cast Doncaster, Northcott Exeter, Snape Maltings, Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough, Theatr Clwyd and the Ravenna Festival in Italy.

Current projects include a commissioning and producing new version of Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman in collaboration with Manchester Camerata, with a new orchestration by Laura Bowler and a new English libretto by Glyn Maxwell to tour nationally in Autumn 2022. I am developing the screenplay for the feature film adaptation of my production of La Boheme, which I will direct for Finite Films.

In 2021 I was commissioned by the Lichfield Garrick Theatre to write a new play for families for their Christmas season and directed and released three live performance films. In 2020 I directed my adaptation of the Jill Murphy book Peace at Last; a new musical for children Sammy & the Beanstalk; Notes to the Forgotten She-Wolves at Shakespeare’s Globe; and Nick Dear’s play The Art of Success at Drama Centre London.

Additional recent directing credits include Redefining Juliet at the Barbican; Masters Are You Mad? Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre / Chester Storyhouse; Voice(less) at RADA; Let’s Make An Opera/The Little Sweep at Malmo Opera House; and Spirit of Vienna for English Touring Opera. I have worked as an acting coach and director at Royal College of Music, Drama Centre, Identity School of Acting, the Associated Studios and the University of the Arts London, and as a mentor for early career directors at the RWCMD and GSMD.

Other experience includes Artist in Residence at Oxford Playhouse (2017/2018); Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (2014-present); secondment at West Yorkshire Playhouse part of my Clore Leadership Fellowship (2013/4); Trustee of Chats Palace Arts Centre (2018-present); Trustee of Farnham Maltings (2013-15); and Trustee of Bloomsbury Festival (2013/14). I hold a BA, First Class Hons in English Language and Literature, from Hertford College, Oxford University.