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Park Theatre presents the UK premiere of Melanie Marnich's

These Shining Lives

Written by

Melanie Marnich

Directed by

Loveday Ingram

Designed by 

Tim Shortall

Projection design by

Victor Craven

Lighting design by

Rob Casey

 

Melanie Marnich's plays include Quake, Blur, Tallgrass Gothic, Calling All, Beautiful Again, The Sparrow Project and A Sleeping Country.  A Sleeping Country won the 2007 Kaplan Award for Playwriting from Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and received its world premiere there in March 2008. These Shining Lives, premiered at Baltimore Center Stage in April 2008 and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and the Weissberger Award in 2005. Her play Cradle of Man received the 2007 Carbonell Award for Best New Work of the Year and was a finalist for the 2006 Weissberger Award. Tallgrass Gothic was recognized as “Best New Script” by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2006. Blur received its world premiere Off Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club and also won the Francesca Primus Prize from Denver Center Theatre. Two of her plays have premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays. Her awards include two McKnight Advancement Grants and two Jerome Fellowships from The Playwrights’ Center and the Samuel Goldwyn Award. Her plays have been produced or developed at New York’s Public Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre, London’s Royal Court Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage and Denver Center for the Arts. Commissions include the Kennedy Center, Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Arena Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and South Coast Repertory. She is an alumnus of New Dramatists and currently writes for the new AMC television series, Low Winter Sun.

Loveday Ingram trained with John Barton at the RSC and was later an Associate Director at Chichester. Her credits include When Harry Met SallyBedroom FarceMy One and Only (Olivier and Evening Standard Awards nominations) and The Blue Room (West End); The Merchant of Venice (RSC World Tour); Pal Joey (TMA Best Musical Award nomination), Dead Funny, Three Sisters and Insignificance (Chichester Festival Theatre); Rockabye (Barbican/Gate Theatre, Dublin. Beckett Centenary Festival); Outlying Islands and Lettice and Lovage (Theatre Royal Bath); Hysteria and Boston Marriage (B*Spoke Theatre Company); Vanessa (Lyric Hammersmith).

Tim Shortall is currently designing the UK premiere of David Mamet’s Race for Terry Johnson at Hampstead Theatre and his other most recent designs are Old Money with Maureen Lipman (also at Hampstead) and Our Country’s Good for Out of Joint at the St James Theatre. Tim’s extensive list of credits in London and the West End include the set for La Cage Aux Folles (also on Broadway - Tony nomination for Best Scenic Design),Top Girls directed by Max Stafford-Clark (Trafalgar Studios and also Chichester), The Big Fellah (Lyric Hammersmith) the set for Sweet Charity (Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Haymarket), The Philanthropist directed by David Grindley with Simon Russell Beale (Donmar Warehouse and then in New York with Matthew Broderick), A New World – The Life of Thomas Paine directed by Dominic Dromgoole (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Overwhelming for Max Stafford-Clark (National Theatre and Laura Pels Theatre, New York), Educating Rita and Rookery Nook (Menier Chocolate Factory), King of Hearts (Hampstead), Awake and Sing with Stockard Channing(Almeida), See How They Run directed by Douglas Hodge (Duchess), Whipping It Up with Robert Bathhurst and Richard Wilson (Ambassadors), Elton John’s Glasses(Queens Theatre).  Other London work includes Telstar, Body and Soul, Murder By Misadventure, The Cooks Tour, the costumes for The Big Knife, Excuses for David Grindley, Haunted, The Amen Corner, 900 Oneonta (Old Vic), What You Get And What You Expect, Eugene Onegin (Lyric Hammersmith and Disappeared  (Royal Court). His designs for dance include Private City/Track and Field (Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet), Sonata In Time (Scottish Ballet), Rhyme Nor Reason and Party Game (Norwegian National Ballet) and The Nightingale (Dutch National Ballet).  His television work includes 20th Century Blue; a tribute to Noel Coward with Robbie Williams and Elton John (BBC) and The Nightingale (NOS Dutch TV) which was the Netherlands’ entry in the Prix Italia and won the RAI Prize for Best Design.  

Victor Craven's projection design for theatre includes: Enron, On Religion & Calendar Girls (Bridewell Theatre); The Beekeeper (The Space); The Cause (Old Vic New Voices) & Frankenstein (Shunt Vaults).

Victor has worked extensively with leading orchestras to create projection designs that are synchronised to the live concert performance. These designs include: Candide, West Side Story, Romeo & Juliet, Pétrouchka, The Firebird, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, The Unanswered Question & The Fairy’s Kiss (London Symphony Orchestra); The Planets (Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg) & Carnival of the Animals (Scottish Ensemble). Victor was invited to curate a programme of these orchestral animations at Shunt Vaults.

Rob Casey trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, his designs include Ignition for Frantic Assembly, Rigor Mortis (Finborough Theatre), Misery (Bournemouth Pavillion). As Associate Lighting Designer his credits include; Peter and Alice (West End), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time (NT and West End), The Audience (West End), Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty (UK Tour), Phantom of the Opera (UK Tour) to name a few.