Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre have today announced the full creative team for The Turn of the Screw, a co-production with English National Opera, alongside titles to complete the Open Air Theatre’s 2018 season
Artistic Director of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Timothy Sheader, directs The Turn of the Screw, which plays 9 performances from 22 June – 30 June 2018. ENO Mackerras Fellow Toby Purser conducts members of the ENO orchestra, and the production is designed by Soutra Gilmour. Completing the creative team, lighting design is by Jon Clark, sound design by Nick Lidster for Autograph, and casting by ENO Head of Casting, Michelle Williams.
This story of unearthly encounters at a remote country house, and of a young governess desperate to protect her children, finds chilling new levels of suspense in this unique outdoor production of Benjamin Britten’s masterly reworking of Henry James’ classic novella.
Timothy Sheader is a multiple Olivier-Award winner with credits at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre including Into the Woods, The Crucible, Crazy for You, Lord of the Flies, and Porgy and Bess. His production of To Kill a Mockingbird won the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Play Revival, and it subsequently completed a sell-out UK tour ahead of a month-long residency at the Barbican. In 2016 Timothy directed Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, which won the Olivier-Award for Best Musical Revival and the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. The production played a return engagement in 2017, and plays at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2018. Other productions include The Magistrate(National), Barnum (Chichester Festival), The Three Musketeers (Bristol Old Vic), Streetcar to Tennessee (Young Vic), Sweet Charity (Sheffield Crucible, TMA Best Musical Award), andMy Fair Lady (Aarhus Teater, Denmark).
Previously for the ENO, Mackerras Fellow Toby Purser conducted The Marriage of Figaro. He has also conducted orchestras including the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Concert Orchestra, L’Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Orpheus Sinfonia, Sinfonia Viva, Kammerphilharmonie Graz, the St Petersburg Camerata, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the St Petersburg Festival Orchestra, as well as a range of concerts for Raymond Gubbay Ltd at major venues throughout the UK. Working with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the tenor Jesús León, he recorded Bel Canto now available on Opus Arte CD. Toby is also the Founder and Artistic Director of the Orion Orchestra, a stepping-stone orchestra for the most talented musicians leaving music college, and Artistic Director of the Peace and Prosperity Trust. Other notable engagements include conducting Madama Butterfly, Eugene Onegin, Rigoletto and Fortunio (Grange Park Opera), The Daughter of the Regiment, Orpheus in the Underworld, Tales of Offenbach and The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief (Opera Della Luna) and Le Comte Ory (Chelsea Opera Group). For Pimlico Opera, he has conducted productions in various prisons, with a cast of inmates performing alongside professionals, including Carmen the Musical, Les Misérables, Sugar, Sister Act, Sweeney Todd and West Side Story.
The Mackerras Conducting Fellowship celebrates the legacy of Sir Charles Mackerras, ENO Music Director between 1970 and 1977, and is made possible with the philanthropic support of The Philip Loubser Foundation.