Page 30 - MISER

CREATIVES
RICHARD HARRIS
AUTHOR
Theatrical successes include: Outside Edge which transferred from Hampstead Theatre to the Queen’s Theatre (Evening Standard Award), The Business of Murder which ran for seven years at the Duchess and Mayfair Theatres, Stepping Out at the Duke of York’s Theatre (Evening Standard Comedy of the Year Award, and Molière Award for the Paris production) and The Maintenance Man at the Comedy Theatre. His play Visiting Hour was performed at the National Theatre. Dead Guilty played at the Apollo Theatre and his version of Ibsen’s Ghosts was produced at the Comedy Theatre, starring Francesca Annis and Anthony Andrews. His play The Last Laugh, based on the original Japanese and starring Roger Lloyd Pack and Martin Freeman, toured extensively, as did Going Straight which starred Pauline Collins and John Alderton. His play Surviving Spike, based on the book Spike, An Intimate Memoir, by Norma Farnes and starring Michael Barrymore and Jill Halfpenny, was produced at the Edinburgh Festival. His musical play Liza Liza Liza was performed at the Tabard Theatre and subsequently at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford and Theatre Royal Windsor.
He has written many plays for television, has contributed to countless television series such as The Darling Buds of May and The Avengers and co-created the series Shoestring and Man in a Suitcase. His script Searching for Senor Duende won him the New York Television Festival Gold Award for Best Writer. He wrote the first ten hours of A Touch of Frost and a comedy-drama series based on his play Outside Edge, for which he won the Writers’ Guild Best Comedy Award, the British Comedy Award
for Best Series and the Television and Radio Industries Award for Best Comedy. His series The Last Detective was based on the books by Leslie Thomas. His radio play Was It Something I Said? was winner of the Giles Cooper Award. Screenplays include: Strongroom, I Start Counting, The Lady in the Car, Orion’s Belt and Stepping Out, adapted from his own stage play. His play Dog Ends has just opened at the Tabard Theatre.
MARIA FRIEDMAN
DIRECTOR
Maria made her directorial debut with the highly acclaimed production of Merrily We Roll Along which opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory in November 2012, and transferred to the West End in May 2013, winning Best Musical at the Evening Standard Awards 2013, the Olivier Awards 2014 (for which Maria was also nominated for Best Director of a Musical), and the Critics’ Circle Award 2013. She went on
to direct High Society at the Old Vic in 2015, which was equally well received.
Maria began her television career as Trish Baines in Casualty and will be best known
to viewers as EastEnders’ redoubtable Elaine. Maria is a multi-award-winning actor (nine Olivier nominations, three Oliviers and an Evening Standard Award). The heart of her career has centred on the love and work of
her dear friend Stephen Sondheim. She played Dot in Sunday in the Park With George at
the National Theatre, Fosca in Passion at the Queen’s (Olivier Award), Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd at the Royal Festival Hall with Bryn Terfel, and Mary in Merrily We Roll Along at the Leicester Haymarket. In concert, she has played Sally in Follies and both Charlotte and Petra in A Little Night Music. Maria was honoured to sing for Stephen at his 80th birthday celebrations
in New York and Washington, as well as at the special all-Sondheim BBC Prom.
Maria’s many international concert appearances include three sell-out seasons at New York’s prestigious Café Carlyle, and many concerts with Michel Legrand and the late Marvin Hamlisch. Most recently, she premiered her new cabaret show Lenny and Steve with musical director Jason Carr at the Hippodrome’s Matcham Room. Her latest recording – Maria Friedman Celebrates the Great British Songbook – is available on Sepia.
2017 sees Maria return to the West End with
her solo show for a three-week run at LIVE at Zédel’s Crazy Coqs, before returning to New York to headline 54 Below for five nights in September.
ROBERT JONES
DESIGNER
Training: Central School of Art.
West End includes: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, When We Are Married, Ragtime,
The Sound of Music (also Toronto, UK tour, Tokyo, China and Australia), Much Ado About Nothing, The Dance of Death (also Australia), Benefactors, Calendar Girls (and UK tour),
A Chorus of Disapproval, Heroes (and Los Angeles), The Wizard of Oz (also Toronto and US tour) and Rock ‘n’ Roll (and Broadway).
As an associate artist of the RSC, credits include: Pentecost, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Herbal Bed, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Henry VIII (and New York) and The Winter’s Tale. Other theatre includes: While the Sun Shines (Theatre Royal Bath), Pericles (New York), Look Back in Anger and Noises Off (also West End and Broadway), The Playboy of the Western World and The Motherf***er with the Hat (NT), The Vote, Lobby Hero, The Physicists, Divas,
A Voyage Around My Father, City of Angels and Black Comedy (Donmar Warehouse), The Mercy Seat, Filumena, Ruined and The Late Henry Moss (Almeida), Strife, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, The Music Man, Hay Fever, Mack and Mabel, Kiss Me, Kate (also Old Vic) and Cyrano de Bergerac (Chichester Festival Theatre)
and various productions for the Bush
Theatre, Hampstead Theatre and Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.
Film includes: Hamlet.
Opera includes: Don Giovanni (Sydney Opera House), Tristan and Isolde (Tokyo and Vienna), Guilio Cesare (Glyndebourne and Chicago),
The Coronation of Poppea (Paris and Berlin), Anna Bolena, Giulio Cesare and Die Fledermaus (Metropolitan Opera, New York), Don Carlos (Frankfurt and Tokyo) and Andrea Chenier (Royal Opera House and Beijing).
He has been nominated for four Olivier Awards, an International Opera Award and won a Drama-Logue Award and Dora Award.