CREATIVE TEAM
Click on a creative team member below for more information
Andrew Lloyd Webber is the composer of The Likes of Us, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, By Jeeves, Evita, Variations and Tell Me On A Sunday later combined as Song & Dance, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, The Woman in White and Love Never Dies. He composed the film scores of Gumshoe and The Odessa File, and a setting of the Latin Requiem Mass Requiem.
In 2004 he produced a film version of The Phantom of the Opera directed by Joel Schumacher and, in 2006, a unique spectacular version of the show in Las Vegas. His new musical Love Never Dies, which continues the story of The Phantom and Christine, opened at London’s Adelphi Theatre in March 2010.
He pioneered television casting for musical theatre with the Emmy award-winning BBC series How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?. He repeated his success with Any Dream Will Do which cast the title role of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and in 2008 he cast the musical Oliver! for the BBC. This year in the BBC series Over The Rainbow he has cast Danielle Hope in the role of Dorothy for his new theatrical production of The Wizard of Oz which will open at the London Palladium in 2011.
His awards include seven Tonys, three Grammys including Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Requiem, seven Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, two International Emmys, the Praemium Imperiale, the Richard Rodgers Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre and The Kennedy Center Honor.
He currently owns seven London theatres including the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the London Palladium.
He was knighted in 1992 and created an honorary life peer in 1997
Glenn Slater was nominated for Tony and Grammy Awards in 2008 for his work on Disney’s stage production of The Little Mermaid.
In 2009 he also worked with Alan Menken as lyricist for The London Palladium production of Sister Act and Disney’s animated version of Rapunzel.
Previous works include the Disney animated feature Home on the Range and the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Obie Award winning revue newyorkers and future plans include Houdini with composer Danny Elfmann, The Hudsucker Proxy with Stephen Weiner and Beatsville with his wife, Wendy Leigh Wilf.
Glenn is the recipient of the prestigious Kleban Award for Lyrics, the ASCAP/Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award and the Jonathan Larson Award.
Glenn is an alumnus of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop and a member of both ASCAP and the Dramatists’ Guild.
Prolific author of numerous hit novels (including Stark, Gridlock, Popcorn, Dead Famous) and award winning TV comedy series (including The Young Ones, The Thin Blue Line, Blackadder) Ben Elton is also one of the UK's most successful and influential stand up comics. He has also achieved success in television and film as an actor, writer and director. He wrote and directed the film Maybe Baby which starred Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson.
His original ambitions were theatrical and he has become a major player in theatre. His plays Gasping, Silly Cow and Popcorn were hugely successful, won many awards and have played around the world. He supplied the book for and also directed We Will Rock You the hit musical based on the songs of Queen which is now in it's eighth year in the West End, is currently on a UK tour and which has played to millions of people world wide. With Andrew Lloyd Webber he wrote book and lyrics for The Beautiful Game which won the London Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and which they have recently re-worked as The Boys in the Photograph, a production of which Ben has directed himself in Canada.
Having been the youngest pilot in the Royal Air Force at the age of 19 Frederick Forsyth went on to a career in journalism which saw him working for The Eastern Daily Press and, during the 1960s for Reuters and the BBC in Paris, East and West Germany and Czechoslovakia. As a freelancer he reported from the Nigeria- Biafran conflict. He is best known as the author of highly successful thrillers including The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War and The Fourth Protocol all of which were subsequently filmed.
Charles Hart was born in London and educated in Maidenhead and Cambridge. He has written words for musicals (The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, The Kissing-Dance, The Dreaming), opera (The Vampyr, BBC TV) and miscellaneous songs, as well as both words and music for television (Watching, Split Ends, Granada TV) and radio (Love Songs, BBC Radio). His Two Studies for String Quartet were performed by the Sacconi Quartet in February 2005 at London's Purcell Room.
Charles Hart’s photographs have appeared on posters and in playbills, as well as publications ranging from Attitude to the Daily Telegraph, and in 2003 he was one of three photographers to feature in an exhibition organised by UNICEF to celebrate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. He lives and works in London.
Simon began his career in New Zealand before emigrating to Australia in 1984 to take up a position as lecturer and director at the West Australian Academy for Performing Arts. In 1987 he joined Melbourne Theatre Company as Associate Director and in 1990 he was appointed Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia. After freelancing nationally and internationally between 1994 and 1999, he returned to MTC as Artistic Director in 2000.
His directing credits range from new works to contemporary and Shakespearean classics to musicals to opera. Simon’s musical credits in Australia include The Twenty-Fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Urinetown the Musical, Company, The Threepenny Opera, Cabaret, and High Society (in an adaptation by his wife, Carolyn Burns), which also toured regionally in the UK. In New Zealand he directed Oliver!, Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Pirates of Penzance.
He has directed works by most of the great contemporary writers: Albee (A Delicate Balance), Beckett (Happy Days), Brecht (Arturo Ui), Churchill (Cloud Nine/Serious Money), Hare (The Blue Room), McDonagh (The Pillowman), Orton (What the Butler Saw/Entertaining Mr Sloane), Shepherd (Buried Child, A Lie of the Mind), and Stoppard (Arcadia, Rock’n’Roll). He has also directed the premieres of many new works by leading Australian writers, including David Williamson, Hannie Rayson and Joanna Murray-Smith.
Among his many classical productions, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, A Comedy of Errors and The Importance of Being Earnest all toured nationally in Australia. Simon’s opera credits include: La Bohème, Falstaff, L’Elisir d’Amore and Lulu for Opera Australia, The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni for Opera New Zealand and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Billy Budd for Hamburg State Opera.
His many awards include: Green Room Awards for Best Direction of a Musical Company (MTC 2001), Best Direction Bombshells (MTC 2001), Best Direction Proof (MTC 2002), Best Direction and Best Production Lulu (Opera Australia 2004), Best Musical Priscilla (2008) and Best Direction August: Osage County (MTC 2009). Helpmann Awards for Best Play and Best Direction of a Play for Inheritance (MTC 2004), Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production and Best Presentation for Children Twinkle Twinkle Little Fish (Windmill Performing Arts 2003), Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical The Twenty-Fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (MTC 2006).
Graeme Murphy was born in Melbourne and studied at The Australian Ballet School. He has danced with The Australian Ballet, Sadler’s Wells Ballet (London) and Ballets Félix Blaska (France). In 1971, he received an Australia Council Grant to study overseas. He returned to Australia in 1975 as a freelance choreographer. The following year, he was appointed Artistic Director of Sydney Dance Company (then known as The Dance Company NSW), a position he held until 2007. During his 31-year tenure, he created more than 50 works, including 30 full-length productions.
Graeme is the recipient of the Order of Australia (1982) for his Services to Dance and three honorary doctorates – Hon. D Litt Tas (1990), Hon. D Phil Qld (1992) and Hon. D Litt UNSW (1999). He was honoured at the Inaugural Sydney Opera House Honours (1993) and named a National Living Treasure (1999) by the National Trust of Australia. He has received a Helpmann Award (2001) for Best Choreography, Body of Work – a Retrospective; the prestigious James Cassius Award (2002); a Centenary Medal (2003) and the Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Award (2004). He was named Cultural Leader of the Year (2004) by the Australian Business Arts Foundation; listed among Australia’s 50 Most Glamorous Exports at a special celebration hosted by the Australian Government and Austrade (2005) and received the Award for Contribution to Cultural Exchange by the Ministry of Culture, the People’s Republic of China (2008).
Graeme’s directing and choreographic credits include Metamorphosis, Turandot, Salome, The Trojans, Aida (Opera Australia); Ainadamar (The Adelaide Festival of Arts); Beyond Twelve, Nutcracker-The Story of Clara, Swan Lake, Firebird and The Silver Rose (The Australian Ballet); Tivoli (a Sydney Dance Company and The Australian Ballet co-production); VAST (The Australian Bicentennial Authority); Hua Mulan (a Sydney Dance Company and Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble co-production); Die Silberne Rose (Bayerisches Staatsballett, Munich); Water (Shanghai Ballet); Embodied (Mikhail Baryshnikov) and The Torvill and Dean World Tour Company. He also choreographed Death in Venice (Canadian Opera Company); Samson et Dalila (The Metropolitan Opera, New York) and the movie Mao’s Last Dancer.
Gabriela designs set and costumes for theatre, dance, ballet and opera. Gabriela has been a regular collaborator with Simon Phillips on numerous Melbourne Theatre Company productions including The Pillowman, Tomfoolery, Urinetown, Cyrano de Bergerac along with L'Elisir D'Amore for Opera Australia.
Opera credits include Cosi fan Tutte, The Baroque Masterworks: Dido & Aeneas and Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Salome and Sweeney Todd.
Other credits include Scheherazade (The Australian Ballet) and costumes on Boomerang (Bangarra Dance Theatre); This Little Piggy, Volpone, Macbeth, Fireface and Attempts on her Life (STC). King Ubu and Our Lady of Sligo (Company B); A Clockwork Forest (Brink Productions/Windmill Performing Arts/Adelaide Fringe Festival/ STC); Eureka the Musical (Eureka Productions); Pippin (Kookaburra Theatre Company); Low for the Carrousel Theater in Berlin; What a Piece of Work (Griffin Theatre Company); Can We Afford This/The Cost of Living for DV8 Physical Theatre (Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival), Kinderspiel (ATYP and the 2002 Sydney Festival); My Head Was a Sledgehammer for B Sharp and Kitchen Sink and Close Your Little Eyes for Kitchen Sink Productions (2003 Sydney Festival). Gabriela also designed the sets and costumes for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Asian Games in Doha.
Gabriela was awarded the 2010 Helpmann Award for Best Costumes for Cosi fan Tutte (Opera Australia); the 2009 Helpmann Award for Best Presentation for Children for Clockwork Forest (Brink Productions/Windmill Performing Arts/Adelaide Festival/ STC);the 2004 Green Room Award for Best Design for The Visit (MTC);the 2002 Green Room Award for Best Costumes for Sweeney Todd (Opera Australia);and a 2002 Helpmann Award nomination for Best Costume Design for L'Elisir d'Amore (Opera Australia).
Recent work includes Fox for MonkeyBaa Productions and Siren Theatre Company, Acis and Galatea/Dido and Aeneas and Jim Sharman's Cosi fan Tutte (costumes)both for Opera Australia and costumes on Bangarra's new production Of Earth and Sky.
Nick Schlieper has designed lighting for all of the major performing companies in Australia, and works regularly in Europe.
In 2009 Nick’s work included War of the Roses, Priscilla Queen of the Desert in London’s West End; Dissocia, Elling, The City and Streetcar Named Desire for the Sydney Theatre Company (Sydney, Washington and New York) and Poor Boy for Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company.
His theatre credits include The Year of Magical Thinking, The Serpent’s Teeth, Blackbird, Dissident, Mother Courage, The Season at Sarsaparilla, A Kind of Alaska/Reunion, Hedda Gabler, Victory, Endgame, A Doll’s House, Volpone, The Three Sisters, Don Juan, Cyrano de Bergerac, A Delicate Balance, Les Parents Terribles, The Life of Galileo, Pentecost, As You Like It, Threepenny Opera, King Lear, Racing Demon for Sydney Theatre Company; Ninety, The Glass Soldier, Cyrano de Bergerac, Two Brothers, The Visit, Inheritance, Great Expectations, Proof, The Tempest, Comedy of Errors and Measure for Measure for Melbourne Theatre Company; The Department, Cosi, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Marat/Sade, Kafka Dances and The Idiot for State Theatre Company of South Australia; The Tempest, Good Works (and set design) and XPO forQueensland Theatre Company; Lulu, Black Mary and The Unexpected Man for Belvoir Street Theatre; Hamlet, Othello and Troilus and Cressida for Bell Shakespeare Company, as well as Priscilla The Musical for Backrow Productions in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.
Nick has also designed lighting for Scheherazade for the Australian Ballet, the acclaimed Cinderella for Royal New Zealand Ballet and several pieces for Bangarra Dance Company including Bush.
His extensive work in opera includes Don Giovanni, Nabucco, Tannhäuser, Il trovatore, L’elisir d’amore, Andrea Chenier, Freischütz, Falstaff and Seraglio for Opera Australia; Salome (and set design) and Parsifal for State Opera of South Australia; Flying Dutchman, Don Giovanni, and Ken Russell’s Madam Butterfly for Victorian State Opera; Macbeth (and set design) for Opera New Zealand and Don Giovanni (and set design) for Opera Queensland. He was lighting designer and associate set designer of the first Australian production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle in Adelaide in 2004.
His international work includes productions of Billy Budd and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Hamburg State Opera; The Hostage for the Royal Shakespeare Company; The Government Inspector for Theatr Clwyd in Wales; Blackbird in New Zealand and at the RuhrFestspiele in Germany, Armut, Reichtum, Mensch und Tier and The Ginger Man for Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg; Kasimir und Karoline and Lea's Hochzeit for Theater in der Josefstadt, in Vienna; U.F.A. Revue for Berlin and Kennedy Centre Washington; Michael Kramer and Ein Florentinerhut for Schillertheater in Berlin; Michael Bogdanov’s productions of Macbeth and Peer Gynt for the State Theatre of Bavaria; Aristokraten for Stuttgart; Tales of Hoffman for Wiesbaden; Away and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll at the Summerfare Festival in New York and Hedda Gabler with Cate Blanchett, also in New York.
In 2010 he again works with the major theatre and opera companies throughout Australia including Melbourne and Sydney Theatre Companies, (notably Long Days’ Journey into Night in Sydney and Portland, USA), Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir Street and Opera Queensland, as well as lighting the opening season in North America of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Musical in Toronto.
Nick has received four Green Room Awards, the Sydney Critics Award in 2009 and 2010, as well as Helpmann Awards in 2004 and 2009.
Gained a BA Honours degree in Creative Design at the Central School of Art and Design in
London where he was introduced to Theatre sound, and went on to work on many West End
musicals including the original productions of Cats, Song and Dance, Starlight Express and Little
Shop of Horrors .
Sound Designs include the world premiere productions of Saturday Night Fever in London and
New York and another ten productions world wide, Black Goes With Everything London,
Starlight Express Las Vegas, North American, UK and Scandinavian Tours, Tell me On A
Sunday London and UK Tour, Scrooge The Musical London, UK and North American Tours,
Jesus Christ Superstar UK Tour, the world premiere of Bombay Dreams London and New York,
the world premiere of The Woman In White London and New York, Hair London, Whistle Down
The Wind London, the largest ever production of Phantom Of The Opera in Las Vegas, the
critically acclaimed West End production of Evita London, the world premiere of Ich War Noch
Neimals In New York in Hamburg and Stuttgart, the world premiere of Der Schuh Des Manitu in
Berlin, the world premiere of Zorro The Musical in London,Paris and Japan, Andrew Lloyd
Webber's hit productions of The Sound Of Music London,Toronto and UK Tour and Joseph and
his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in London, the world premiere of Sister Act in London and
Hamburg, Les Miserables International 25th Anniversary Tour UK, O2 Arena,USA and Spain, the
world premiere of Love Never Dies in London.
Mick created all new sound designs for both the London and New York productions of Phantom
Of The Opera.
Forthcoming productions in 2011: Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of The Wizard Of Oz in
London, Cameron Mackintosh's new musical Betty Blue Eyes in London, Sister Act on Broadway.
Awards include the 2005 Olivier Award in the UK for Best Sound Design for the London
Production of The Woman In White and the 2006 Parnelli Sound Designer Of The Year Award in
the USA for Phantom Of The Opera in Las Vegas.
Theatre: David Cullen has worked mainly as an orchestrator of musicals, most notably those of Andrew Lloyd Webber – Cats, Starlight Express, Song & Dance, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, By Jeeves, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game and The Woman in White. Other musicals which he has orchestrated include Abbacadabra, Jeeves, Shogun the Musical (in New York), Children of Eden, Edna – The Spectacle, Stepping Out and three London revivals – Can-Can, The Baker’s Wife and Carmen Jones.
Records which he has arranged include the America album by the King’s Singers, Christmas with Kiri by Kiri Te Kanawa and I Am What I Am by Shirley Bassey. He both arranged and produced the albums Music of the Night for Cantabile and Lloyd Webber Plays Lloyd Webber for Julian Lloyd Webber.
Film and television: Jesus Christ Superstar (Really Useful Films). David has orchestrated much film and television music for Carl Davis – Show People, The Crowd, The Thief of Baghdad, Our Hospitality and Champions. He provided the orchestrations for the Disney productions of Cinderella and Geppetto. He has contributed original themes and incidental music to three television series – The Bretts, Relative Strangers and Surgical Spirit.
He won the New York Drama Desk Award for his orchestrations of The Phantom of the Opera and was nominated again the following year for Aspects of Love.
Guy Simpson has been working as a Conductor, Musical Director and Musical Supervisor for almost 30 years.
His work on The Phantom of the Opera began in Australia in 1990. International productions followed in Auckland, Cape Town, Pretoria, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Brazil (in Portuguese) and Seoul where he produced the cast recording in Korean.
He has had a similar association with Miss Saigon in Australia, Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brazil and Seoul. He has worked closely with the show’s composer since the original production almost 20 years ago.
Other international productions include Cats (Australia, New Zealand), Chicago(Australia, Hong Kong) and We Will Rock You the Queen musical (Australia, Japan)
Other productions in Australia include Les Miserables; Cabaret; My Fair Lady; Company; Little Shop Of Horrors; Best Little Whorehouse In Texas; West Side Story; Pirates Of Penzance; Snoopy; Seesaw; Crusade; Into The Woods; Zorba, Funny Girl; Call Me Madam; Mack And Mabel; The Music Man; They’re Playing Our Song; Carousel; Oklahoma; Camelot; Little Me and Follies.
Other Musical Direction work has included the UK Pop / Opera group Amici Forever, The Helpmann Awards and The Music Of Andrew Lloyd Webber in concert.
The Really Useful Company Asia Pacific Pty Ltd (RUCAP) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the London based The Really Useful Group Ltd (RUG), which is owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based in Sydney, RUCAP is responsible for RUG’s activities in Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, including producing, co-production and licensing. RUCAP productions in Australia have included Aspects of Love, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sunset Boulevard, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
In Asia RUCAP has presented Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. RUCAP is touring a production of Cats in Asia which first opened in December 2006 in Taiwan. It toured extensively including Seoul and other regional cities in South Korea, Bangkok, eleven cities in mainland China, Singapore and Hong Kong. Cats returned to Australia to play seasons nationally, and has subsequently moved back into Asia. Licensed productions in Japan include Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Aspects of Love, The Beautiful Game and The Woman in White, and in Korea Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, The Beautiful Game and Tell Me on A Sunday.