Chester Mystery Plays 2013
The professional team that will lead the 2013 production includes:
Peter Leslie Wild is an award-winning freelance theatre director and radio drama producer. Since winning a BP Young Directors Award in 1989, Peter has worked extensively in theatre, radio and on site-specific projects. He set up and ran the Community Programme for the Orange Tree Theatre in London (1991-95), where he also directed acclaimed productions of The Return of the Prodigal, Someone Waiting, Romeo and Juliet, and a children’s version of The Mysteries. From 1995 to 2011, he was Senior Producer for BBC Radio Drama based in Birmingham, where he has worked with a vast range of writers including Steve Waters, David Edgar, Stephen Poliakoff, Arnold Wesker, Louise Page, Glyn Hughes, Lucy Gough, Stephanie Dale and Helen Cross.
His radio productions include the Classic Serial versions of Watership Down, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, The Turn of the Screw, Wuthering Heights and the recent Woman’s Hour version of Wives and Daughters. He produced and directed the award-winning drama-documentary strands Making Space, Beyond the Canvas, Out of the Mould and Victorian Marriage Beds. Recent work includes five serials featuring Lindsey Davis’s Roman detective (Radio 4), Falco, two PD James serials, Jenny Stephens’ sci-fi serials Jefferson 37, Project Raphael and Project Archangel (Radio 7), Amadeus (starring F Murray Abraham) for Radio 2, The Contingency Plan and Great Escape (Radio 3), and two series of the acclaimed Writing the Century, based on real letters and diaries from the 20th Century.
In the theatre, Peter has made something of a specialism of working in unexpected venues. The Worcester Pilgrim by Alex Jones was staged in Worcester Cathedral, and he is collaborating with Birmingham Rep to direct Dealing With Dreams by Stephanie Dale in Walsall New Art Gallery. He has recently collaborated with Singworks on Choral History and When the Stamp Made Its Mark, two large scale projects involving 150 primary schoolchildren, a choir and a band, staged in Kidderminster Town Hall.
Peter is looking forward to working with the people of Chester on the Mystery Cycle, and is honoured to be involved in such a prestigious and exciting project.
Matt was composer for the highly acclaimed Chester Mystery Plays 2008 which followed the success of his music for the 2003 cycle. He is founder and artistic director of Chester’s professional company Theatre in the Quarter. Compositions for this company include Forgotten Fortress, James, Jacobean Christmas, Home For Christmas, Silent Night, Some Sunny Day, Sweet Sixteen, Twelve Days of Christmas and Garden Lane – The Musical. Also in Chester, Matt is director of the ever successful A Handbag of Harmonies, who appeared in BBC1’s Last Choir Standing and were runners up in the 2010 Manchester Choral Competition. He is artistic director of Jigsaw Children’s Music Theatre who are now in their 20th successful year.
Further afield, other composing credits include Alice in Wonderland, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, James and the Giant Peach, Rome – The Empire Strikes Back, The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, Arabel’s Raven, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Shoah, It Was A Dark And Stormy Night and Anthem for Doomed Youth (Nuffield Theatre Southampton), A Christmas Carol, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hunchback of Notre Dame (Dukes Playhouse, Lancaster) and many pieces for Action Transport Theatre. Matt composed the official anthem, From the Ocean to the Stars, for the opening of Liverpool World Museum and has composed several pieces for Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. Matt has recently been musical director for Little Voice at the Dukes Playhouse which received a 4 star Guardian review. His other work as musical director with young people has taken him as far as Melbourne, Yangon, Tanzania and Dehli.
Acting credits include: Narrator in Roald Dahl’s The Twits (UK Tour and London), Duke Box in From a Jack to a King (Oldham Coliseum), Malvolio in Twelfth Night (Chester Gateway), Rasputin (UK/Germany tour), Threepenny Opera (UK tour), Puss in Blue Suede Boots (Liverpool Everyman), Cinderella (Liverpool Neptune), Magic Book (Action Transport Theatre), Jack In The Junk Box, Jack and the Little Fir Tree (Leicester Haymarket).
TV Credits include BBC Cutting It, Merseybeat and What Are We Like and Yorkshire Television Emmerdale.
Stephanie is a Birmingham-based writer of stage, community and radio plays. A graduate of the MA in Playwriting at Birmingham University, she now teaches Playwriting there as well as Writing and Devising at Birmingham City University and Applied and Community Drama at Loughborough University.
Her plays for the stage include an adaptation of J.M. Falkner's Moonfleet with composer Tim Laycock, The Kite (Doorway Theatre Company), A Time To Keep (Dorchester Community Plays Association, co-written with David Edgar and published by Nick Hern Books). For radio she has written Believe Me, First Bite Of The Air, What Is Missing From Your Life?, The Men, The Wife, and Written In Mist - all for BBC Radio 4.
She is currently working on a new play, Mary MacArthur for Midlands Actors Theatre, a community play The Witches' Promise and a new play Dealing With Dreams, both for Birmingham Repertory Theatre and an adaptation of The Chester Mystery Plays which will be performed in 2013.
For more information, please visit www.stephdale.com.
Judith trained first in Fashion and Textiles, then Theatre Design at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
She has worked extensively in the North West, becoming Head of Design for the Library Theatre Company in 1991, where she continues to work on a regular basis. She has designed many of their successful productions of plays by Neil Simon, including the Brighton Beach trilogy, The Odd Couple (winner of Best Production, Manchester Evening News ) and Laughter on the 23rd Floor, which she also designed for the West End run, starring Gene Wilder.
Judith has designed musicals, including Assassins, Company and Putting it Together with director Roger Haines at the Library, and Leader of the Pack at the New Wolsey, Ipswich and Theatre Clwyd. Opera includes Falstaff at the RNCM (winner of Best Production of an Opera, M.E.N).
Recent work with the Library includes: My Night with Reg, Translations, Waiting for Godot and Someone to Watch Over Me (all winners of Best Production, M.E.N), Dancing at Lughnasa, The Real Thing, Much Ado about Nothing, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Faith Healer, Frozen, The Glee Club, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Importance of Being Earnest and, at the Quays Theatre in the Lowry, Arcadia, A Doll’s House and Wind in the Willows.
Judith designed the set and costumes for the 2008 cycle of the Chester Mystery Plays. Other site-specific work includes Alice in Wonderland at Heaton Park, Manchester, and Hard Times, presented in 2011 as a promenade production by director Chris Honer, in a disused textile mill in Manchester. She designs for the community based company Theatre in the Quarter in Chester; productions include Home for Christmas, James, and in Spring 2012, Unsinkable.
Judith has designed the Rock and Roll Panto at Clwyd Theatr Cymru for the last 12 years, working with director Pete Rowe. She is a regular exhibitor with the Society of British Theatre Designers and currently is Chair of the Equity national Designers Committee.
General Manager: Jane Dawson
Jane has worked in the cultural sector since 1980. She has managed a range of performing arts organisations including Chester Gateway Theatre from 1990-1995, and has worked in national and regional agencies (including Arts Council England), local government (Cheshire County Council from 1998-2005) and national government (DCMS). She is a Non Executive Adviser to NHS Western Cheshire, an artistic assessor for Arts Council England and has been a magistrate in Chester since 2006.
Since 2009, Jane has been working as a freelance consultant in cultural and arts management, undertaking a number of contracts for local authorities and arts organisations as one half of “JAG” consultancy group with colleague, Gail Thorne. She started working with local professional music theatre company, Theatre in the Quarter, in 2010, providing business management services. Jane’s involvement with Chester Mystery Plays goes back to 1992 when the Gateway Theatre performed Cain and Abel in Bob Cheeseman’s production. She joined the Board in 2005, but stepped down in early 2011 to act as project manager on Sharing the Mystery, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and to take on the role of General Manager for 2013.
Jane has worked in the cultural sector since 1980. She has managed a range of performing arts organisations including Chester Gateway Theatre from 1990-1995, and has worked in national and regional agencies (including Arts Council England), local government (Cheshire County Council from 1998-2005) and national government (DCMS). She is a Non Executive Adviser to NHS Western Cheshire, an artistic assessor for Arts Council England and has been a magistrate in Chester since 2006.
Since 2009, Jane has been working as a freelance consultant in cultural and arts management, undertaking a number of contracts for local authorities and arts organisations as one half of “JAG” consultancy group with colleague, Gail Thorne. She started working with local professional music theatre company, Theatre in the Quarter, in 2010, providing business management services. Jane’s involvement with Chester Mystery Plays goes back to 1992 when the Gateway Theatre performed Cain and Abel in Bob Cheeseman’s production. She joined the Board in 2005, but stepped down in early 2011 to act as project manager on Sharing the Mystery, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and to take on the role of General Manager for 2013.
Company Manager: Julie Elston
Julie has been Company Manager with Chester’s professional music theatre company, Theatre in the Quarter, on all of its productions since it was formed in 2006. She has also worked with Jigsaw Children’s Music Theatre Company for over 10 years, providing production support as well as pastoral care for the students. As well being an experienced Company Manager, Julie has co-directed productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare for Schools) and 1001 Arabian Nights (in partnership with Bishops’ Blue Coat School) as part of her role as a STA at Dee Banks Special School for children with special educational needs, a role she has held for over 20 years. She has also worked with Cheshire Youth Theatre, Gateway Youth Theatre, and for Merseyside TV on Hollyoaks and Grange Hill, and had her first experience of Chester Mystery Plays in 2008.
Julie has been Company Manager with Chester’s professional music theatre company, Theatre in the Quarter, on all of its productions since it was formed in 2006. She has also worked with Jigsaw Children’s Music Theatre Company for over 10 years, providing production support as well as pastoral care for the students. As well being an experienced Company Manager, Julie has co-directed productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare for Schools) and 1001 Arabian Nights (in partnership with Bishops’ Blue Coat School) as part of her role as a STA at Dee Banks Special School for children with special educational needs, a role she has held for over 20 years. She has also worked with Cheshire Youth Theatre, Gateway Youth Theatre, and for Merseyside TV on Hollyoaks and Grange Hill, and had her first experience of Chester Mystery Plays in 2008.
