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Elphin Productions and Leigh Porter in association with Park Theatre presents
Beirut
ALAN BOWNE I WRITER
ROBIN LEFEVRE I DIRECTOR
LIZ ASCROFT | DESIGNER
LEIGH PORTER I LIGHTING
JOHN LEONARD | SOUND DESIGN
EMILY JONES | CASTING
ALICE 'BLUE' BRADFIELD | ASSISTANT DESIGNER
MILES FISHER | ASSISTANT LIGHTING DESIGNER & PROGRAMMER
PHIL MATEJTSCHUK | ASSOCIATE SOUND DESIGNER
LINNEA FRIDÉN GRǾNNING | STAGE MANAGEMENT
EMMA MARTIN | MARKETING
TIM CHARRINGTON | DIALECT COACH
Alan Bowne | Author
Alan Bowne (1945–1989) was an American playwright and author. He was a member of the New Dramatists. He wrote a number of plays including Beirut, Forty-Deuce, Sharon and Billy, and The Beany and Cecil Show, many of which are available from Broadway Play Publishing Inc. He also wrote one novel Wally Wonderstruck. He died of complications related to AIDS at the age of forty four. Bowne’s play Beirut was adapted to the 1993 TV movie Daybreak starring Cuba Gooding Jr and Moira Kelly.
Robin Lefevre | Director
Robin Lefevre is an Award Winning British Theatre Director having worked extensively in the West End and on Broadway where his directing credits include Brian Friel’s The Aristocrats for which he won the New York Drama Desk Award for Best Director, and Frank McGuinness's Tony- nominated Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (Best Foreign Play, New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), as well as George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House for the Roundabout Theatre Company. He won an Evening Standard Award for ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ at the Phoenix Theatre in the West End. Originally as an actor, Robin started directing with John Byrne’s first play, Writers Camp. He went onto join the Hampstead Theatre, where he directed a number of plays including Bodies by James Saunders and Brian Friel’s Translations. More recently he has directed a host of classic, critically acclaimed revivals, often at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. His television work includes Alan Bleasdale’s major series Jakes Progress, starring Robert Lyndsey and Julie Walters, and a short film for Channel 4, Self Catering. Other credits include: The New Revue with Rowan Atkinson (Shaftesbury Theatre), The Weekend with Michael Palin (Strand Theatre), Poor Beast in the Rain –The Wexford Trilogy (Bush Theatre), The Homecoming (Comedy Theatre), Afterplay (Gielgud Theatre), The Entertainer (Shaftesbury Theatre), See You Next Tuesday (Gate Theatre Dublin). Losing Louis (Hampstead Theatre) All My Sons (Gate Theatre Dublin) Ladies in Lavender with Hayley Mills (Royal and Derngate Northampton) and Duet for One (Birmingham Rep)
Liz Ascroft | Designer
Liz graduated with a BA Hons from Wimbledon School of Art. She has been awarded the Arts Council Trainee Design Bursary, the UNESCO award for Promotion of the Visual Arts (Prague Quadrennial), and TMA Best Designer.
Forthcoming productions include: This is Not For You (Graeae);
Theatre credits include: The House of Bernarda Alba (Royal Exchange) Reasons To Be Cheerful Graeae) Fawlty Towers (Australian Tour) Legends (UK Tour) Tartuffe; Of Mice and Men (Birmingham Rep) A View From The Bridge (UK Tour) Grapes of Wrath (RADA) On Golden Pond, Golden Leaf Strutt, Sad Arthurs Trip, Agnes of God (Belgrade Theatre) Trogen Women, Tis Pity She’s A Whore, As You Like It, The Nativity (Liverpool Everyman); Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Importance of Being Earnest , The Three Musketeers The Snow Queen, Death and the Maiden, Robin Hood, Beauty and the Beast (Dukes Playhouse Lancaster); Merrily We Roll Along (Watermill Theatre); Beautiful Thing, Blithe Spirit, The Three Sisters, Children’s House, Strawgirl, The Apoption Papers, Roots, Mary Barton, Hedda Gabler, As You Like It, Fast Food, So Special, The Seagull, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Royal Exchange) On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange, Cottesloe Theatre); Katherine Howard (Chichester Festival Theatre); Cavalcaders (Tricycle); Canary, Seven Up, Vincent River, Apocalyptica, Give Me Your Answers Do, Yellowman, Anna in the Tropics, Losing Louis, Rubenstein’s Kiss (Hampstead Theatre); Peggy For You (Comedy Theatre, London & Tour); Two Gentleman of Verona (RSC, National Tour); Honour (Wyndams Theatre); Corrie! (Lowry & Tour).
For the Gate Theatre, Dublin: All My Sons, Unlce Vanya, Pygmalion, Dublin Carol, See You Next Tuesday (Duke of York Theatre), The Bear, Afterplay (The Spoleto Festival, South Carolina, The Gielgud Theatre) Faith Healer, Yalta Game, Afterplay (Sydney Festival), ONE FOR THE ROAD (St Martin’s Theatre, Lincoln Centre – New York for The Pinter Festival).
Opera Credits include: The Carmelites (Grange Park Opera); PORGY AND BESS (The Royal Danish Opera) LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR (Scottish Opera, Houston Grand Opera Texas, La Fenice Venice & The Sydney Opera House).
John Leonard | Sound Design
John Leonard started work as a sound designer before the term was even coined in the UK and in his forty years in the industry, he has produced soundtracks for shows all over the world. From his early days at The Bristol Old Vic, he has been fortunate to have worked with many of theatre's most innovative and demanding directors and was employed for ten years by the Royal Shakespeare Company, becoming Head of Sound for the organisation in 1984 and an associate artist for the remainder of his time there. He left in 1989 to pursue a freelance career and since then has worked for most of the major theatre companies in the UK, including The National Theatre, The English National Opera, The RSC, Hampstead Theatre, The Almeida Theatre, for which he is sound consultant, The Donmar, and extensively in London's West-End, on Broadway and on national and international tours.
Apart from his theatre work, John has designed a number of exhibitions for The Tussauds Group, including those in Warwick Castle, Amsterdam and New York and has also provided solutions to conservation problems for museums such as The Wallace Collection and properties of The National Trust.
John is also an experienced sound effects recordist and his recordings are much in demand in the film and television industry as well as in theatre.
He is the author of a renowned textbook on theatre sound, winner of Drama desk and Sound Designer Of The Year awards, writes a regular column on sound for Live Design magazine, lectures on his work and career and is a Fellow Of The Guildhall School Of Music & Drama and an Honorary Fellow of The Hong Kong Academy Of Performing Arts.
Leigh Porter | Lighting Design
Leigh trained in Technical Theatre Arts and has now been working in the entertainment industry for over 25 years. His work has seen him work in more than four hundred venues, in over twenty countries. Leigh has a vast experience in all areas of technical production in many arenas of entertainment. As well as theatre, Leigh has worked on corporate entertainment, conferences, exhibitions and live broadcast television. The venues Leigh has worked in have ranged from the smallest theatres right through to an eighteen thousand seat amphitheater in Greece. The shows have ranged from a one-woman show through to large-scale musicals and international tours.
Emily Jones | Casting Director
Casting Director credits include Our Blue Heaven (New Wolsey Theatre), The Devil with the Blue Dress (The Bunker Theatre), Broken Glass (Watford Palace Theatre), Child of the Divide (Bhuchar Boulevard), PowerPlay (Hampton Court Palace), Orca (Southwark Playhouse), Donkey Heart (Trafalgar Studios/Old Red Lion), Coolatully (Finborough Theatre), World Enough & Time (Park Theatre), The Hard Man (Finborough Theatre), The Keeper of Infinite Space (Park Theatre), Unscorched (Finborough Theatre). Film & TV credits include Doctors (BBC), Beauty (Moolmore Films), What Happened to Evie (French Fancy Productions), Practice (Deva Films), Collection Only (Constant Productions).
As an Assistant, Emily has worked on Silent Witness, Father Brown, Casualty, The Coroner and Doctors.
Tim Charrington | Dialect Coach
Tim trained at Central School of Speech & Drama; first as an actor, then in Voice Studies. He has now taught accents for nearly 30 years. Recent theatre credits include An Officer & A Gentleman for Leicester Curve, Birdsong no.1 tour, and Mayfly for the Orange Tree. For Park Theatre, he worked on their opening production Daytona with Maureen Lipman, Harry Shearer and John Bowe. Film credits include Free Fire, Private Peaceful and Kidnapping Freddy Heineken. Tv credits include 24 - Live Another Day, John Adams and Call The Midwife.