CREATIVE TEAM
Torben Betts Writer
Philip Franks Director
Colin Falconer Designer
Jason Taylor Lighting Designer
Max Pappenheim Sound Designer & Composer
Emma Sylvester Casting Director
Biographies
Torben Betts
Writer
For Original Theatre: Murder at Midnight, Murder in the Dark, Apollo 13: The Dark Side of the Moon (Original Theatre Online); Caroline’s Kitchen (Park Theatre, UK tour & Brits-off-Broadway); Invincible (UK tour & Brits-off-Broadway).
Theatre: includes The National Joke (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough); Invincible (Orange Tree Theatre and St James Theatre, London, Brits-off-Broadway); What Falls Apart (Live Theatre, Newcastle); Get Carter (Northern Stage); The Seagull (Regent’s Park Open Air); A Listening Heaven (Edinburgh Royal Lyceum, nominated as TMA Best New Play 2001); TheUnconquered (Traverse/Tron/Brits-off-Broadway/UK tour, winner of Best New Play at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland, 2007); Muswell Hill (Orange Tree Theatre and Park Theatre, London); The Company Man (Orange Tree Theatre); It Never Happened (Arts Educational); Eight Little Criminals; The Illusion of Time; Nobody Wants to Kill You (all at the Playground Theatre, London); The Error of their Ways (HERE Arts Center, New York/Cockpit Theatre, London); Lie of the Land (Arcola Theatre, London/Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh); The Swing of Things; Her Slightest Touch (both Stephen Joseph Theatre); Incarcerator (Battersea Arts Centre, London); The Lunatic Queen (Riverside Studios, London); Five Visionsof the Faithful (Edinburgh Festival Theatre); Clockwatching (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond and Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough); The Biggleswades (Southwark Playhouse), Silence and Violence (White Bear Theatre, London).
Film: Invincible (Vince Films); Downhill (Crisis Films) and Guillemot (Full Effect).
His plays are consistently performed around the world and to date have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Finnish, Czech, Polish, Slovakian, Greek, Russian, Turkish and Portuguese.
Philip Franks
Director
Philip is an actor and director.
For Original Theatre he has directed: Murder at Midnight, Murder in the Dark, The Mirror Crack’d, The Habit of Art (UK tour and New York) and The Croft.
For Original Online: A Cold Supper Behind Harrods, Barnes’ People and The Haunting of Alice Bowles, which he also wrote. As an actor with Original Theatre and he appeared in Apollo 13: The Dark Side of the Moon and Flare Path. He has directed over sixty plays, in the West End, at the National Theatre, the Chichester Festival Theatre and in most major theatres in the UK.
He has also directed many plays for BBC radio, most recently his own adaptation of the Machine Stops by E M Forster. Philip has been an actor for over forty years, on stage, TV, film, radio and the concert platform. At the moment, Philip is appearing as Mr Brownlow in Cameron Macintosh’s production of “Oliver!” in the West End.
Colin Falconer
Designer
Colin studied Interior and Environmental Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and Theatre Design at Nottingham Trent University.
Theatre credits include: After The Dance, Perfect Nonsense (Theatre By The Lake); Doctor Faustus, Volpone, Richard the Second (Tangle Theatre); Travels with My Aunt (Chichester Festival Theatre); Workshop Negative (Gate Theatre); Cabaret, Urinetown (Arts Educational); The Three Lions (The Other Palace); Rumpelstiltskin (Theatre Royal Bath/MAC Belfast); Travels With My Aunt (Menier Chocolate Factory); Blue/Orange (Theatre Royal Brighton and tour); There We Have Been, Everything and Nothing (Sadler’s Wells Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest, Travesties (Birmingham Rep), Happy Birthday Sunita (Rifco/Watford Palace Theatre); The Constant Wife, The Picture, Private Lives, The Winslow Boy, Restoration, Northanger Abbey (Salisbury Playhouse); Blithe Spirit (Watford Palace Theatre); Outlying Islands (Theatre Royal Bath); The House of Bernarda Alba, Siwan, The Misanthrope, Endgame, Dominos (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru); Romeo and Juliet, Three Sisters (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Merchant of Venice (Royal Shakespeare Company); The Misanthrope, The Secret Rapture, Hysteria (Minerva Theatre, Chichester); The Blue Room (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Acis and Galatea, Dido and Aeneas, Hansel und Gretel (RSAMD Glasgow); Aladdin (Scottish Ballet) and Twelfth Night (Liverpool Playhouse).
Television: credits include EastEnders (BBC) and Una (BBC4).
Jason Taylor
Lighting Designer
Jason was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Journey’s End at the Belasco Theatre, Broadway.
For Original Theatre: Birdsong , A Splinter of Ice, Cold Supper Behind Harrods, Into the Night.
West End/London: Journey’s End (Harold Pinter Theatre/Playhouse/ Duke of York’s); Some Girls (Apollo); Fifteen Seasons (Regent’s Park, Open Air Theatre); The Rivals, Daytona (Haymarket); The Letter, Honour (Wyndham’s); Twelfth Night (Noël Coward); Raiman (Lyric); Glorious, Our Boys (Duchess); What the Butler Saw (Criterion); Treason the Musical (Palladium); And Then There Where None (Duke of York’s); Gangsta Granny (Garrick); High Society (Shaftesbury); Pygmalion (Old Vic); Great Balls of Fire (Cambridge); The End of the Night (Park Theatre); The Big Fellah (Lyric, Hammersmith); The American Plan (St James); Six Degrees of Separation, National Anthems (Old Vic); Connections Season (National Theatre); The Empire (Royal Court); Abigail’s Party (Whitehall); Top Girls (Trafalgar); The Lyons (Menier) and Di and Viv and Rose (Hampstead).
UK regional includes: Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Hairspray, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story (Kilworth House Theatre); Copenhagen (Sheffield Theatres); over 20 productions for Alan Ayckbourn (Scarborough); 25 pantomimes and
55 other productions (Nottingham Playhouse as Resident); Fallen Angles (Chichester Festival Theatre); All My Sons (Plymouth); Tell Me on a Sunday (Old Laundry, Bowness); Mrs Pat (Chichester Festival Theatre); Hysteria (Birmingham Rep); Madness of George III (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Dead Funny (Edinburgh); Kafka’s Dick (Bath) and Hansel and Gretel (Grange Park Opera).
UK national tours: Cluedo 2 – The Next Chapter, Looking Good Dead, Horrible Histories, The Syndicate, Treason the Musical, Looking Good Dead, Band of Gold, House on Cold Hill, How the Other Half Loves, The Commitments, Waiting for God, Henceforward, Not Dead Enough, Tom the Musical, Hero’s Welcome, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Single Spies, Stepping Out and Annie Get Your Gun.
International: Journey’s End (Broadway); Pygmalion (Broadway); Mamma Mia! (Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium); Waitress, Evita, Love Never Dies, Billy Elliot the Musical, Anything Goes (Copenhagen, Denmark); Assassins (Bergen, Norway); The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (Karlstad, Sweden); Matilda the Musical (Helsinki, Finland); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf (Gate, Dublin); The Merry Wives of Windsor (New York/Los Angeles); Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the Musical (Antwerp, Belgium); Peter Black (Budapest, Hungary); Rent (Antwerp, Belgium); The Taming of the Shrew (Middle East tour); The Yalta Game/Dumb Waiter (Gate, Dublin); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Larnaca, Cyprus); Blood Brothers( New Zealand/ Australia tour) and A Doll’s House (Galway, Ireland).
Max Pappenheim
Sound Designer & Composer
For Original: ART, Murder in the Dark, Being Mr Wickham, The Mirror Crack’d, End of the Night, The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Splinter of Ice, The Croft, The Habit of Art, Napoli, Brooklyn, Caroline’s Kitchen, The Night Watch. Online: The System, The Red, A Cold Supper Behind Harrods, Barnes’ People.
Theatre: recently includes The Night of the Iguana, Cruise (West End); The Children (Broadway); Noughts and Crosses, Twelfth Night (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); A Raisin in the Sun (Headlong); The Forsyte Saga (Park Theatre); The School for Scandal, Crooked Dances (Royal Shakespeare Company); Coram Boy, Macbeth (Chichester Festival Theatre); Shed: Exploded View (Royal Exchange); A Doll’s House Part 2, The Way of the World (Donmar Warehouse); The Invention of Love, Blackout Songs, Labyrinth (Hampstead Theatre); Village Idiot, One Night in Miami (Nottingham Playhouse); Henry V (Shakespeare’s Globe/Headlong); Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic); Ophelias Zimmer (Schaubühne/Royal Court); Not Your Superwoman, Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, Old Bridge (Bush Theatre); The Homecoming, My Cousin Rachel (Theatre Royal Bath); Churchill in Moscow, Blue/Heart, The Distance (Orange Tree Theatre); The Talented Mr Ripley, Picture You Dead, The Mirror Crack’d, Wish You Were Dead, The Circle (National Tours).
Opera and Ballet includes Kirsten Flagstad (Bergen International Festival); The Limit (Royal Ballet); The Marriage of Figaro (Salzburg Festival); Miranda (Opéra Comique, Paris); Hansel and Gretel (BYO/Opera Holland Park); Scraww (Trebah Gardens).
Associate Artist of Orange Tree Theatre, The Faction and Silent Opera. Awards include Off West End Award for Sound Design for Old Bridge.