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Ensemble and York Theatre Royal presents
The Restoration of Nell Gwyn
Director | Damian Cruden
Lighting Designer | Nao Nagai
Designer | Richard Aylwin
Writer | Steve Trafford
Biographies
Director | Damian Cruden
Damian has been Artistic Director of York Theatre Royal for the past 16 years. He trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama between 1982 and 1986.
He has directed many productions, including: In Fog and Falling Snow, The Restoration of Nell Gwyn, Blithe Spirit, The Legend of King Arthur, The Guinea Pig Club, The York Mystery Plays 2012, Laurel and Hardy, 40 Years On, Peter Pan, My Family and Other Animals, The Railway Children, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Wind in the Willows, Up the Duff, The Homecoming, The White Crow (Eichmann in Jerusalem); Death of a Salesman, Patient No. 1, Enjoy, Bouncers 2007 Remix, The Dumb Waiter, The Hare and the Tortoise (in York and Japan); Pygmalion, Broken Glass, East Is East, Hay Fever, Macbeth, A Cloud in Trousers, Brassed Off, Caitlin, A Taste of Honey, Habeas Corpus, Up‘n’Under, Frankenstein, Noises Off, Little Shop of Horrors, Othello, Closer, The Turn of the Screw, Bedevilled, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kafka’s Dick, Man of the Moment, Having a Ball, Romeo and Juliet, Getting On, The Three Musketeers, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, All My Sons, Piaf, Dead Funny, Educating Rita, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Neville’s Island, Multiplex, Abandonment and Private Lives. He has co-directed the last 16 York Theatre Royal pantomimes with Berwick Kaler.
Before York, Damian worked for various regional theatres as a freelance director. He was Associate Director for Hull Truck in the early ’90s and prior to that Co-artistic Director of the Liverpool Everyman Youth Theatre. He worked for the Tron and TAG in Scotland and was a tutor for the Scottish Youth Theatre.
Lighting Designer | Nao Nagai
Nao is a lighting designer, performance maker and educator from Japan based in London. She has collaborated with various performance makers and currently works as lighting tutor at Goldsmith’s College. She also sings and performs with Frank Chickens and is co-founder of the ‘Hey Ho Ha’ theatre company, with Yoko Nishimura. She works on projects across a whole range of genres. She is interested in creating performance work with a strong visual language that engages with interdisciplinary practices.
Designer | Richard Aylwin
Richard Aylwin is an artist and designer, specialising in prepared space, printed and moving image. Much of his work has been associated with opera and new music.
The companies Richard has worked for include: English National Opera, The Wrestling School, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Scottish Opera, Opera Northern Ireland, Music Theatre Wales, Lyric Theatre London, Wexford Festival Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Opera North, Liverpool Philharmonic Society, Opera Vest (Norway), Contact Theatre Manchester, Welsh National Opera and Sadler’s Wells.
Theatre and Opera productions include: The Tragedy of Carmen (Brooke),Mother Courage, La Cenerentola, Don Giovanni, Noye’s Fludde, The Fall of the House of Usher, Waiting for Godot, Phaedra, Soldier’s Tale, Katya Kabanova, Punishment Without Revenge, School for Clowns, Rigoletto, The Rape of Lucrecia, Hansel and Gretel, The Threepenny Opera, The Shaming of Bright Miller, Monster, Beatrice and Benedict and for Ensemble: Portraits in Song, Ay Carmela, The Uninvited and Souvenir d’Anne Frank.
Writer | Steve Trafford
Steve’s theatre work includes founding the Red Ladder Theatre, where his credits include: Taking Our Time (Dir. Michael Attenborough) and Ladders to the Moon (Dir. Annie Castledine). He wrote Marie: UK tour, Fortune Theatre, and BBC Radio Four, as well as Hymn to Love: UK tour and BBC Radio Three. He translated Brecht’s The Mother for a UK tour, and co-devised Portraits in Song with Elizabeth Mansfield for tours in the UK and USA, followed by A Cloud in Trousers at York Theatre Royal and UK tour, and a new translation of Ay Carmela by Jose Sanchis Sinisterra for York Theatre Royal and a UK tour.
Steve’s work for the screen includes the Channel Four Feature Film T Dan Smith and many popular TV series including The Knock, Heartbeat, Medics, Wycliffe, The Bill and the BBC Series Between the Lines for which he won a Writers Guild Award. Most recently he has been a regular writer for Midsomer Murders.