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BB&B
Beowulf –
A Thousand
Years of
Baggage
Mon 13 — Wed 15 May 2013,
7.30pm
Spiegeltent
The Famous Spiegel Garden
Brighton Festival programmes are supported by WSL (Brighton) Ltd
Please ensure that all mobile phones are switched off
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Beowulf –
A Thousand Years of Baggage
Banana Bag & Bodice
Molly Bashaw
trombone
Jeremy Beck
Academic 1
Rick Burkhardt
King Hrothgar/piano
Lisa Clair
Academic 3
Jason Craig
Beowulf
Anna Ishida
Warrior vocals
Jessica Jelliffe
Academic 2
Sam Kulik
guitar
Mario Maggio
clarinet/bass clarinet
Blake Newman
bass
Andy Strain
trombone
Shaye Troha
Warrior vocals
Pete Wise
drums
Text and lyrics
Jason Craig
Music
Dave Malloy
Co-directors
Rod Hipskind and Mallory Catlett
Lighting designer
Miranda Hardy
Music director
Rick Burkhardt
Sound designer
Charles Shell
Choreography
Shaye Troha and Anna Ishida
Costume designer
Sf Buffoons and Enver Chakartash
Production stage manager
Kelly Shaffer-Allen
Dramaturgy
Mallory Catlett
Assistant lighting designer
Eileen Goddard
Sound engineer
Jason Sebastian
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Co-artistic directors
Jason Craig and Jessica Jelliffe
Managing producer
Laura Roumanos
Tour agent
Menno Plukker Theatre Agent:
Menno Plukker and Sarah Rogers
Production photographs
Laetitia Thomas
The performance lasts 1 hour 10 minutes
Beowulf — A Thousand Years of Baggage, created in 2008, was given its world premiere
by The Shotgun Players, Berkeley, California (Patrick Dooley, artistic director; Elizabeth Lisle,
managing director), and has since toured to the Abrons Arts Center in association with
PS122, the NYC Parks SummerStage Festival and Joe’s Pub in New York, Berkeley Rep’s
Rhoda Theater, the Lion d’Or Theater as part of Les Escales Improbables in Montreal,
Quebec, America Repertory Theater’s 2011 Emerging America Festival in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, the 2011 Kilkenny Arts Festival, Assembly’s Dans Paleis Spiegeltent at the
2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the 2013 Adelaide Festival. Later this week Beowulf
will be performed in the Mayfest, Bristol, in association with the Bristol Old Vic. Beowulf
was awarded a Herald Angel and the Will Glickman Award.
Special thanks to all the artists who have previously worked on Beowulf: Jahana Azodi,
Jen Baker, Gelsey Bell, Chris Broderick, Dan Bruno, Kaibrina Buck, Catherine Coffey,
Sarah Engelke, Ezra Gale, Cameron Galloway, Benjamin Geller, Sig Hafstrom,
Simon Hanes, John Hanes, Angela Hsu, Birgit Huppuch, Christopher Kuckenbaker,
Molly McAdoo, Andre Nigoghossian, Eva Peskin, Annie Scott, Kristen Sieh, Scott Sowers,
Ken Thomson, Brian Thompson, Paloma Wake, Pinky Weitzman, Brendan West,
Beth Wilmurt, Hanah Zahner-Isenberg. Thanks too to all donors.
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Beowulf and his Legendary
World
The Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf opens with a call for our attention:
Hwaet! We Gar-Dena in geardagum, þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon (‘Listen!
We have heard tell of the Spear-Danes in days gone by, of the glory of the
kings of that people’). The audience is a community of listeners who share
in the legendary past into which they are plunged. It is a time of kings and
feuds, heroes and monsters, bygone days (geardagum) in which noblemen
perform courageous deeds in pursuit of fame and glory. Despite Woody
Allen’s famous quip in Annie Hall — ‘just don’t take any class where you
have to read Beowulf’ — the poem remains a firm favourite of English
literature courses, and in the past few decades it has enjoyed something of
a renaissance in the popular imagination. From Seamus Heaney’s awardwinning translation to the film blockbuster starring Ray Winstone and
Angelina Jolie, Beowulf has succeeded in capturing and holding our
attention from its first exclamatory Hwaet! over a thousand years ago.
The poem survives in a single manuscript copy in the British Library, known
as Cotton Vitellius A XV. The manuscript dates from c1000 and narrowly
escaped destruction in an 18th-century library fire, its singed edges telling
a tale of peril just as epic as Beowulf’s final fight with the fire-breathing
dragon. The poem is written in the earliest form of English: Anglo-Saxon (or
Old English, as it is often known), a Germanic language with a rich wordhoard for describing the warrior culture at its heart, from the treasure
dispensed by the lord to his loyal retainers to the battle-gear donned by the
hero when he faces his enemy, be they human or monster.
Although scholars can date the manuscript in which the poem was written
down, very little can be said for certain about the identity or origins of the
author and his subject matter. We do know that the poem was written by
a Christian poet, but he was looking back into the pagan past of a story
set across the sea in Scandinavia. Just as we are looking back into history
when we read the poem, so too was the Anglo-Saxon poet and his
audience. Where many modern encounters with the poem take place
within the pages of a book, the Anglo-Saxon experience of poetry was as
an oral performance. Poems such as Beowulf were composed orally, often
out of pre-existing material, and then written down at a later date. We are
asked to listen by the poet, who reshapes his material for each individual
performance. In Beowulf itself the poet (or scop in Anglo-Saxon) is depicted
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as a thane of the king who tells stories in the hall, the centre of AngloSaxon society, often with his harp for musical accompaniment, both to
entertain his audience and to recall into the present the heroes and
monsters of the past. The scop is the community’s memory and it is his job
to make those memories come alive — for the audience to look out into the
darkness and wonder if there is a monster like Grendel stalking the moors
to this day.
Like most Anglo-Saxon poetry, Beowulf is untitled in the manuscript but its
modern name draws attention to its unifying thread: the hero. The poem is
structured round his three battles with monsters: Grendel, Grendel’s Mother
and the dragon. The demon Grendel has been terrorizing the hall of
Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, for 12 winters, tearing his warriors limb
from limb and feasting on their flesh in a grotesque parody of the hall feast.
Beowulf, a young warrior from the kingdom of the Geats, has heard tell of
Hrothgar’s troubles and he travels across the sea to rid the kingdom of its
monster. Renouncing weapons to fight mano a mano with Grendel, Beowulf
fulfils his heroic boast and is victorious. In a delightfully visceral combat, he
rips the monster’s arm off, seonowe onsprungon / burston banlocan
(‘sinews sprung apart, bone-locks burst’) and Grendel flees back to his lair,
leaving a trail of blood as his life slips away.
Unfortunately the Danes’ celebrations are short lived as Grendel’s Mother
arrives at the hall the following evening to exact revenge for her son’s death
by killing one of Hrothgar’s retainers, an act that when committed by a
monster is an atrocity but that was a regular occurrence in a society of
feuding tribes. Beowulf valiantly sets out for Grendel’s Mother’s mere and,
diving down into the depths, kills her without a second thought.
Fast forward 50 years and Beowulf is the king of the Geats, an embattled
people trapped in an endless cycle of feuding with the Swedes, and our
hero faces his final monster fight. When a thief steals a cup from a treasure
hoard, the wrath of a dragon is awoken and Beowulf’s hall is burnt to the
ground. The aged warrior sets out to defeat the dragon, but although he is
able to wound the beast, his youthful days of heroism are over and he
receives a mortal wound in return. Both hero and monster perish, leaving
the Geats without a leader, facing a future of inevitable war and death.
However, early scholars did not read the poem as a story of epic monster
fights. It was seen as a historical document or linguistic curiosity, scarcely
considered for its poetic quality, much less for its monsters, until in 1936 a
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lecture was delivered by none other than J.R.R. Tolkien. ‘Beowulf: The
Monsters and the Critics’ revolutionized scholarly understanding of the poem
and put the monsters back where they belonged: at the centre of the poem’s
interest. Of the dragon — a forerunner of Smaug, his own creation in The
Hobbit — Tolkien wrote, ‘whatever may be his origins, in fact or in invention,
the dragon in legend is a potent creation of men’s imagination, richer in
significance than his barrow is in gold’. Anglo-Saxon poetry was a rich
treasure hoard for Tolkien’s own fantasy creations and he took inspiration from
its language, culture and story-telling throughout The Lord of the Rings. The
Riders of Rohan are indebted to Anglo-Saxon warrior culture, even down to
the names of the characters and their hall. The name of their king, Theoden,
is taken from the Anglo-Saxon word for prince (þeoden, the letter ‘þ’ is our
‘th’) and the Golden Hall of Meduseld is the Anglo-Saxon mead-hall (meodusele) re-created. The patrilineal identity of Eomer, son of Eomund, and
Aragorn, son of Arathorn, owes much to Beowulf’s identification of a warrior
by his kin, Beowulf son of Ecgtheow, Hrothgar son of Healfdane.
The language of Beowulf is often seen to be as alien as the monsters that
stalk its pages, but its core vocabulary is still the foundation modern English
— modor and faeder (mother and father), cyning and cwen (king and
queen), sweord and scyld (sword and shield). For the Irish poet Seamus
Heaney it was the word þolian (‘to suffer’ or ‘to endure’) that was his key to
the poem. In the introduction to his 1999 translation, Heaney speaks of the
poem as ‘part of my voice-right’, a conclusion that he came to when he
recognized the fossilized remains of þolian in the word ‘thole’ in the
Irish–English dialect of his own family. ‘They’ll just have to learn to thole
[suffer]’, he reports his aunt saying. ‘þolian opened up my right of way as a
translator’, Heaney declared, and subsequent readers have found their own
right of way into the poem, reinterpreting it through art, film and performance.
From graphic novels to illustrated children’s books, blockbuster movies to stop
motion Lego animation on YouTube, the poem’s monsters and heroes are still
being reimagined and rewritten for the contemporary world, just as they were
for Anglo-Saxon England.
The motion-capture animated movie of Beowulf (2007), starring Ray
Winstone (Beowulf), Antony Hopkins (Hrothgar) and Angelina Jolie (Grendel’s
Mother), does more than most to recast the narrative for the present day. In
the poem Beowulf defeats Grendel’s monstrous mother and the dragon
appears out of the mists of time as his final nemesis; but in the film Winstone’s
East End ‘tough guy’ Beowulf kills the ‘monsta’ Grendel but cannot resist the
sexual temptation of the mother. No longer a monstrous hag but instead a
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seductive shapeshifter, Jolie emerges out of the mere, dripping with gold like
an Anglo-Saxon Bond Girl; rather than kill her, Beowulf is tempted by her
offer of everlasting fame and the crown if he will give her another son to
replace the one he has taken. Jolie tells him that ‘a man like you could own
the greatest tale ever sung. Your story would live on when everything now
alive is dust’. Beowulf cannot resist and, fantastically, the dragon is born of
their union and Beowulf’s ‘son’ then revisits his father’s sins upon the whole
community.
In the film Beowulf’s hunger for celebrity status leads to sexual indiscretion and
tragedy, but in the poem fame is the motivation and reward for ellendaedum
(‘courageous deeds’). The Anglo-Saxon poem ends with Beowulf’s people
mourning at his funeral pyre and its final word on the eponymous hero is that
he was lofgeornost (‘most eager for fame’). That the poem continues to be
read, sung and rewritten to this day is testimony to that fame and to our
enduring fascination with Beowulf’s legendary world of heroes, kings and
dragons.
© Laura Varnam
Laura Varnam is a lecturer in Old and Middle English literature at University College, Oxford
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Biographies
Banana Bag & Bodice
Founded in 1999, Banana Bag & Bodice is a Brooklyn-based collaborative that creates shows
based on original writing, musical composition and collective design. Its objective is to entertain
and provoke through dysphorian humour, its elastic approach having one common goal: to
celebrate and expose the inspiring awkwardness of being human. Its shows vary in style and
scope from large-scale spectacles (Sandwich, a musical about killing animals) to intimate
everyday portraits (Space//Space, a sci-fi study of claustrophobia), yet each mixes music and
text with titillating irreverence and whimsy. The company is known for an intricate and complex
design formed from discarded materials found in off-Broadway dumpsters (skips). In New York its
work has been presented at PS122, the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, the OHIO, the Collapsable
Hole and the Abrons Arts Center and has toured nationally and internationally to San Francisco,
Boston, Montreal, Kilkenny, Dublin, Edinburgh and Adelaide.
Molly Bashaw trombone
Molly Bashaw was born in 1978 in Malone, New York, and grew up on small farms in
Massachusetts and upstate New York. After receiving degrees in trombone performance and
English from the University of Rochester, she continued her studies under Abbie Conant at the
Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany. She has performed professionally in
a variety of ensembles and is also currently the poet-in-residence at Phillips Exeter Academy in
Exeter, New Hampshire.
Jeremy Beck Academic 1
Jeremy Beck was last in the UK ten years ago with Joe Calarco’s four-man Shakespeare’s R&J,
which was presented in Bath and Coventry, and at The Arts Theatre, London. He is an alumnus
of the British American Drama Academy’s ‘Midsummer In Oxford’ programme; a graduate of
James Madison University, Virginia; and a member of The Actor’s Company Theatre, New York.
His regional stage credits include Quartermaine’s Terms at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. His
numerous New York productions include adaptations of Hamlet, Lope de Vega’s The Dog in the
Manger, and Wagner’s Ring cycle (in which the characters wrestled, WWE-style, instead of
singing) with Dave Dalton; and collaborations with Mallory Catlett (a deconstruction of Richard II
in J.P. Morgan’s Wall Street penthouse), Jessica Jelliffe and Jason Craig.
Rick Burkhardt King Hrothgar, piano, music director
Rick Burkhardt is an Obie Award-winning playwright, performer, composer and songwriter whose
original chamber music, theatre and text pieces have been performed in over 40 cities in the
USA, as well as in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. He is a
founding member of the Nonsense Company, a touring experimental music and theatre trio, and
the songwriter and accordionist for the Prince Myshkins, a political cabaret–folk duo whose
original songs have been performed and recorded by musicians worldwide. He lives in Brooklyn.
Mallory Catlett co-director, dramaturg
Mallory Catlett is a cross-discipline director of performance who has been working with Banana
Bag & Bodice since 2005. In the past year she directed Dread Scott’s performance installation
Dread Scott: Decision at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and City Council Meeting, a piece
performed by its audience, made locally in Houston, Arizona, New York and San Francisco. Her
forthcoming opera projects include Tarik O’Regan’s The Wanton Sublime for American Opera
Projects; Stefan Weissman’s Scarlet Ibis for HERE/Prototype; and James Maxwell’s Little Crimes for
Restless and Vancouver New Music. This Was The End, her adaptation of Uncle Vanya, will have
its premiere at the Chocolate Factory Theater, New York, next year.
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Enver Chakartash co-costume designer
Enver Chakartash is a costume designer and performer based in New York. He began working
with Banana Bag & Bodice last year, designing Space//Space. He is a company member of
The Wooster Group, for which he co-ordinated costumes for North Atlantic, Vieux Carré and
Hamlet. In other Group productions, he was costume designer and performer in Early Plays,
directed by Richard Maxwell, and Assistant for Costumes for Troilus and Cressida. His other
theatre credits include designing costumes for and performing in Big Rob’s Barbecue, directed
by Stiven Luka; and designing the costumes for Git for TheatreState, The Little Chaos, directed
by Stiven Luka, Three Sisters, adapted and directed by Rosie Goldensohn, and Seagull
(Thinking of You) for Half Straddle, directed by Tina Satter. His film work includes the costumes
for Fish Will Bite, directed by Stiven Luka.
Lisa Clair Academic 3
Lisa Rafaela Clair is a New York-based performer whose credits include Evelyn at the Bushwick
Starr, New York; AutoMotive at Performance Space 122, New York; and The Material World
at Dixon Place, New York. This year she is an artist-in-residence at The University Settlement
House, New York, with her play Yeh, I’ve Been Searchin’. Her other plays have been presented
at the IRT Theater and Dixon Place, New York. She performed for several seasons with the
Théâtre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis, has appeared in several films and commercials, and is
a graduate of Bard College, New York.
Jason Craig Beowulf, lyrics
Jason Craig is a co-founder and the Co-Artistic Director of Banana Bag & Bodice (BB&B), for
which he is a writer, performer, set designer and technical director. His work with BB&B has
won him national and international awards, and has kept him busy for the last 13 years. His
commissions elsewhere include Beardo with Shotgun Players in Berkeley, California; Oh What
War with Mallory Catlett for Juggernaut Theatre, which was presented at Here Arts Space,
New York; and Gogol: A Clown Opera for the inauguration of The Exit on Taylor at the Exit
Theatre, San Francisco.
Eileen Goddard assistant lighting designer
Eileen Goddard is a lighting designer and technician who has been based in New York for the
past seven years. Banana Bag & Bodice is the first company she worked with in New York.
She also works as a writer, artist and jewellery designer.
Miranda Hardy lighting designer
Miranda Hardy is a visual artist and lighting designer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work
with light has been for theatre, opera, dance, live music, museums and corporate events. She is
a member of the performance-by-design collective TENT and has affiliations with Banana Bag
& Bodice and Latitude 14, as well as being a co-founder of tinyelephant, a studio dedicated to
the performing object.
Rod Hipskind co-director
Rob Hipskind is a freelance photo stylist, art director, actor and director. His work with Banana
Bag & Bodice includes The Young War, The Sewers and The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen.
As a company member of foolsFURY, he directed The Turn of the Screw and Twelfth Night and
performed in Don Delillo’s Valparaiso and the American premiere of The Devil on All Sides. As
Artistic Director of the underground ensemble Wit’s End, he directed Eric Overmeyer’s On the
Verge and adapted Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck. He completed the scenic design for the West
Coast premiere of Charles Mee’s Gone for Crowded Fire Theater Company and for
Mugwumpin’s premiere of And I Need That. This is All I Need.
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Anna Ishida Warrior vocals
Born in Tokyo and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Anna Ishida is the star of H.P. Mendoza’s
arthouse horror film I Am a Ghost, which won numerous awards last year and is currently up for
distribution. She was an original cast member of Beowulf and has also worked with Dave Malloy
and Jason Craig on Beardo, loosely based on the life of Rasputin. She is a graduate of the
Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, California, and Mills College in Oakland, California,
and completed the 30th Annual Shakespeare & Company month-long training programme in
Lenox, Massachusetts. Last year she won the San Francisco Bay Guardian Outstanding Local
Discovery Award for Theater.
Jessica Jelliffe Academic 2
Jessica Jelliffe is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Banana Bag & Bodice. She has been
collaborating on and performing in each of its shows since 1999; her additional roles for the
company include design, direction, company management and production management. Her
performing credits elsewhere include Shadows for Hoi Polloi, New York; Oh What War and
As You Like It for Restless Productions, New York; Valparaiso, Attempts On Her Life and Jacques
and His Master for foolsFURY, San Francisco; History of the World Part IV for gALE gATES et al,
New York; and Gogol: A Clown Opera at the Exit Theater, San Francisco.
Sam Kulik guitar
Born in Worthington, Massachusetts, Sam Kulik works as a trombonist, bassist and guitarist with
an exciting throng of bands in New York. His own project, Escape From Society, is an album of
song-poems based on lyrics he was sent by strangers on Craigslist. He also co-wrote and
performed the psychedelic opera Talibam! & Sam Kulik Discover AtlantASS, which was released
on CD with a 30-page comic book and staged last year at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater,
New York. He plays bass in the prog band Starring and the Iranian funk band Mitra Sumara,
and plays trombone with David First’s The Western Enisphere, Skeletons Big Band, Johnny Society
and in recent theatre works by Cynthia Hopkins and The Talking Band. He has also performed
and recorded with John Zorn, Amanda Palmer and Anthony Braxton.
Mario Maggio clarinet, bass clarinet
Mario J. Maggio is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who currently lives in the Catskill mountains
of New York. Most of his time is spent performing and touring with various bands and projects; he
plays hot clarinet with the traditional jazzers Jessy Carolina & The Hot Mess and Old Fish Jazz
Band. He plays lap steel, a home made chair-guitar and tenor sax with the mutant soul band
PC Worship. He is a singer, guitarist and composer for the weirdo dark folk group Ommie Wise.
Dave Malloy composer
Dave Malloy has written music for seven musicals, most recently Natasha, Pierre and the Great
Comet of 1812, an electro-pop opera based on War and Peace that won the Richard Rodgers
Award and was on the Best of 2012 lists of the New York Times, Time Out, New York magazine
and the New York Post. His other musicals include Beardo, Sandwich and Clown Bible. He is
also one of the co-creators and performers of Three Pianos, a drunken romp through Schubert’s
Winterreise which won an OBIE Award, and the winner of a Jonathan Larson Grant and the
NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Designers. He was the 2011 composer-inresidence at Ars Nova; has been a Guest Professor in devised music theatre at Princeton and
Vassar; and has been the composer for Banana Bag & Bodice since 2002.
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Blake Newman bass
Blake Newman’s engagements include Oedipus, Orpheus X and Julius Caesar for the Amercian
Repertory Theater; John Kelly’s Paved Paradise: The Music of Joni Mitchell for Theater Offensive,
Hammer Museum, Real Artways and Bard College, New York; a tour of Senegal with Ibrahima
Camara and Safal; and appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Hong Kong
International Festival of the Arts, the Festival d’Automne (Paris), Festival Iberoamericano (Bogotá)
and Theatre For a New Audience. He plays and records with Gamelan Galak Tika and has
performed at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, New York. He composed the score for the play
As If We Live To Bear No Scars for As If Theater and is the bassist with the Jeff Robinson Trio, the
Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, MusAner, the Daniel Bennett Group and Agachiko.
Jason Sebastian sound engineer
Jason Sebastian has been working freelance in film, theatre and music for the last 14 years. His
credits include The Select (The Sun Also Rises) and Gatz for Elevator Repair Service; designing
and composing with Tara O’Con and Red Metal Mailbox; and composing the music for Rods
and Cables for 3-Legged Dog. He engineered and mixed slow/dynamite’s the mountains are our
people, released on a limited-edition double vinyl disc, and he designed the sound for Within Us
at Performance Space 122 for MVWorks. He is currently working on a new project with Tara
O’Con and MVWorks at the Chocolate Factory Theater, New York.
Charles Shell sound designer
Charles Shell is a designer, and recording and mixing engineer based in New York. His sound
design credits include The Two Noble Kinsman and King John for The Guerrilla Shakespeare
Company; Parts Are Extra and Tinder for Christina Campanella and Peter Norrman; BOTCH and
Hypatia with Joe Diebes; and Hoi Polloi for All Hands. This year he became Head of Audio at
the Lincoln Center Theater’s new Claire Tow Theater. He also plays bass and guitar for various
bands and theatre projects.
Andy Strain trombone
Andy Strain was a classical musician in various orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout
Germany, Mexico and the USA before discovering his passion for Young Audience Performances.
He writes and performs shows for young people of all ages, centred on storytelling and
improvisation. He leads two after-school SHOUT! brass bands for middle-schoolers in Oakland,
California, and is a brass instructor in schools and at his studio. He has toured with Banana Bag
& Bodice and the musician Johanna Newsom since 2010.
Shaye Troha Warrior vocals
Shaye Troha has co-choreographed and been an original cast member in Banana Bag & Bodice’s
Beowulf — A Thousand Years of Baggage since its premiere in 2008. She is an acting, directing
and producing alumnus member of San Francisco’s acclaimed comedy troupe Killing My Lobster,
having performed at the New York, San Francisco and Vancouver Sketch Comedy Festivals and the
American Conservatory Theater, among others. Her other theatre credits include appearances at the
2007 and 2009 NYC Fringe; and In the Wake at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, the San Francisco
Playhouse and PCPA Theatrefest at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, of which she is a
graduate. Her films include Holiday Road (selected for the 2011 Slamdance Film Festival).
Pete Wise drums
Peter Wise grew up playing music in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and studied percussion at the
Eastman School of Music and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Currently based in
Hudson, New York, and the Berkshires, he plays with an eclectic variety of ensembles, including
Newspeak, Oliphant, J.G. Thirlwell’s Manorexia and Banana Bag & Bodice. He is one of the
co-founding artistic directors of the Berkshire Fringe, a theatre, dance and music festival in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts. He is also a founding member of Kickwheel Ensemble Theater, most
recently composing music and designing the sound for Dark: An End of the World Play with
Music and an Exercise Bike.
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Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival
Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival is a registered charity that runs the year-round programme at Brighton
Dome (Concert Hall, Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre) as well as the three-week Brighton Festival that
takes place in venues across the city.
Chair
Ms Polly Toynbee
Board of Trustees
Ms Pam Alexander, Cllr Geoffrey Bowden, Mr Donald Clark, Prof. Julian Crampton, Mr Simon Fanshawe,
Mr Nelson Fernandez, Prof. David Gann, Mr David Jordan, Mr Alan McCarthy, Cllr Mo Marsh,
Mr Dermot Scully, Ms Sue Stapely
Producing Brighton Festival each year is an enormous task involving hundreds of people. The directors would like to
thank all the staff of Brighton Dome and Festival, the staff team at our catering partners Peyton & Byrne, the staff at
all the venues, the volunteers and everyone else involved in making this great Festival happen.
Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival Staff
Chief Executive Andrew Comben
PA to Chief Executive Heather Jones
Senior Producer Tanya Peters
Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival Artistic Planning
Music Producer Laura Ducceschi
Theatre Producer Orla Flanagan
Programming Coordinator Martin Atkinson, Rosie Crane
Programme Manager Jody Yebga
Venue Diary Manager Lara Hockman
Brighton Festival Artistic Planning and Production
Production Manager, External Venues Ian Baird
Production Manager, Outdoor Events Polly Barker
Producing Assistant Charlotte Blandford
Associate Producer Sally Cowling
Festival Classical Producer Gill Kay
Literature and Spoken Word Producer Mathew Clayton
Artistic Planning Volunteers Maddie Smart, Martha Bloom,
Grace Brannigan, Chloe Hunter
Volunteer Coordinator Melissa Perkins
Peacock Poetry Prize Volunteer Annie Tomlinson
Learning Access and Participation
Head of Learning Access and Participation Pippa Smith
Creative Producer/26 Letters Programmer Hilary Cooke
Learning Access and Participation Manager Rebecca Fidler
Learning Access and Participation Assistant Alex Epps
Learning Access and Participation
Volunteer Coordinator Kelly Turnbull
Director of Development Barbara MacPherson
Development and Membership
Trusts and Foundations Associate Carla Pannett
Development Manager (maternity leave) Sarah Shepherd
Development Officer Ceri Eldin
Membership Officer Kelly Davies
Development Administrator Dona Crisfield
Development Communications Volunteer Patricia Nathan
Director of Finance and Deputy Chief Executive Amanda Jones
Finance
Management Accountant Jo Davis
Senior Finance Officer Lizzy Fulker
Finance Officers Lyndsey Malic, Carys Griffith, Donna Joyce
Human Resources
Human Resources Officer Kate Telfer
Administrative Assistant (HR) Emma Collier
Human Resources Volunteer Melissa Baechler
Contracts and Information Technology
Head of Management Information Systems Tim Metcalfe
Contracts Manager Gwen Avery
ICT Support Officer Paul Smith
Administrative Assistant (Contracts) Cathy Leadley
Director of Marketing Carole Britten
Marketing and Press
Press and PR Manager Nicola Jeffs
Head of Press (maternity leave) Shelley Bennet
Marketing Manager Marilena Reina
Senior Marketing Officer (maternity leave) Georgina Harris
Acting Senior Marketing Officer Carly Bennett
Marketing Officer James Barton
Freelance Marketing Officer Rasheed Rahman
Senior Press Officer Chris Challis
Design and Print Production Officer Louise Richardson
Digital and Administrative Officer Annie Whelan
Broadcast PR Anna Christoforou
Festival Photographer Victor Frankowski
Marketing Volunteers Muna Amor, Alice Garside
Design Volunteer Jason Wilkinson
PR Volunteer Elizabeth Hughes
Ticket Office
Ticket Services Manager Steve Cotton
Deputy Ticket Services Manager Steve Bennett
Ticket Services Supervisor Phil Newton
Senior Ticket Services Assistant Dom Plucknett
Ticket Services Assistants Laura Edmans, Emily Adams,
Marie-Claire De Boer, Jacqueline Hadlow, Josh Krawczyk,
Bev Parke, Florence Puddifoot, Jamie Smith, Caroline Sutcliffe
BF09_2013BeowulfAW3:BF1 / LSO artwork 08/05/2013 22:28 Page 16
Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival
Director of Operations Maxine Hort
Production
Head of Production Rich Garfield
Event Production Manager Olly Olsen
Operations Production Manager Kevin Taylor
Production Coordinator Erica Dellner
Concert Hall Senior Technician Nick Pitcher, Sam Wellard
Corn Exchange Senior Technician Andy Furneaux
Studio Theatre Senior Technician Beth O’Leary
Technicians Jamie Barker, Sam Burgess, Bartosz Dylewski, Scott McQuaide, Jem Noble, Adam Vincent, Seth Wagstaff, Csaba Mach,
Mike Bignell, Al Robinson, John Saxby, Jon Anrep, Chris Tibbles, Dan Goddard, Nick Goodwin, Nick Hill, Philip Oliver,
Peter Steinbacher, Christos Takas, Youssef El-Kirate, Daniel Harvey, Marc Beatty, Rebecca Perkins, Owen Ridley, Graham Rees,
Eliot Hughes, Matt Jones, James Christie, Robert Bullock
Conference and Event Sales
Business Development Manager Donna Miller
Conference and Event Sales Manager Delphine Cassara
Marketing Assistant Helen Rouncivell
Maintenance
Maintenance
Maintenance
Maintenance
Maintenance
Manager John Rogers
Supervisor Chris Parsons
Plumber Colin Burt
Apprentice Matthew Ashby
Visitor Services
Head of Visitor Services Zoe Curtis
Visitor Services Manager Sarah Wilkinson
Event Managers Morgan Robinson, Tim Ebbs, Simon Cowan, Josh Williams
Duty Event Managers Jamie Smith, Adam Self
Visitor Services Officer Emily Cross
Senior Visitor Services Assistant Kara Boustead-Hinks
Visitor Services Assistants Peter Bann, Graham Cameron, Melissa Cox, Anja Gibbs, Valerie Furnham, David Earl, Andrea Hoban-Todd,
Tony Lee, Jules Pearce, Joe Pryor, Alex Pummell, Josh Rowley, Thomas Sloan, Adam Self, Claire Swift, Carly West, Nicky Conlan,
Matt Freeland, Matthew Mulcahy, Richard Thorp, Emily Cross
Visitor Services Volunteer Coordinator Lizzy Leach
Front of House
Front of House Manager Ralph Corke
Front of House Supervisors Bernard Brown, Kara Boustead-Hinks, Bill Clements, Gabi Hergert, John Morfett, Jeff Pearce, Betty Raggett,
Michael Raynor, Adam Self
Stewards and Security
Paul Andrews, David Azzaro, Peter Bann, Janey Beswick, Hannah Bishop, Jim Bishop, Penny Bishop, Andy Black, Sarah Bond,
Sara Bowring, Alice Bridges, Frank Brown, Andy Buchanan, Johanna Burley, Carole Chisem, Julian Clapp, John Clarke, Tricia Clements,
Joyce Colivet, NIcky Conlan, Mary Cooter, Fraser Crosbie, Darren Cross, John Davidson, Marie-Clare De Boer, Lawry Defreitas,
Paddy Delaney, Emma Dell, Kathy Dent, Judi Dettmar, Alan Diplock, Melanie Dumelo, Maureen East, Jan Eccleston, Abigail Edwards,
Daniel FlowerDay, Maria Foy, Valerie Furnham, Betty Gascoigne, Anja Gibbs, Vivien Glaskin, Matt Goorney, Debbie Greenfield,
Louise Gregory, Ellie Griffiths- Moore, Paul Gunn, Gillian Hall, Kezia Hanson, Thomas Haywood, Martin Henwood, Al Hodgson,
Mike Hollway, Peter Holmes, Frances Holt, Tony Jackson, Emily James-Farley, Mick Jessop, Julie Jones, Mark Jones, Julia Jupp,
Jim Killick, Kev Koya, Jon Lee, Emma Levick, Ady Limmer, Samatha Lucus, Vicki Lywood-Last, Carol Maddock, Ivica Manic, Tania Marsh,
Carole Moorhouse, Nick Morgan, Lisa Murray, Richard Nast, Mlinh Nguyen, Paley O’Connor, Brendan O’Meara, Lucy Paget,
Simon Pattenden, Jules Pearce, Noele Picot, Rachel Potter, Will Rathbone, Grant Richie, Jenny Ridland, Ruth Rogers, Joshua Rowley,
Eve Saunders, Rossana Schaffa, Laura Scobie, Samantha Sharman, Joe Simmons-Issler, Caroline Smith, Graham Smith, Jamie Smith,
Alex Sparham, Sheila Stockbridge, Richard Thorp, Brigitt Turner, Carly West, Geraldine White, Cicely Whitehead, Geoff Wicks,
Linda Williams.
Programmes
Editor Alison Latham | Biographies editor Oliver Tims | Design Heather Kenmure 020 7931 7639 | All articles are copyright of the author