TheatreVoice

INTERVIEW: RACHEL CHAVKIN. As Anais Mitchell’s contemporary folk opera Hadestown continues at the National Theatre ahead of its Broadway run, director Rachel Chavkin talks to Matt Trueman about the edges and limits of musical theatre. With her own company The TEAM, Chavkin increasingly builds music into dense, devised work like Mission Drift and Anything That […]

INTERVIEW: MICHAEL BOYD. Belfast-born director Michael Boyd ran the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2003 and 2012, during which time he stabilised its finances, restored its reputation, oversaw the transformation of its buildings in Stratford and pushed the boat out with The Complete Works festival of 2006. Since then he has been busy as a freelance […]

INTERVIEW: ALAN LANE. Slung Low’s artistic director tells Catherine Love about the company’s radical transformation over the last decade, from an independent experimental company to a socially-engaged organisation creating large-scale public spectacles and participatory projects. They discuss the company’s egalitarian set-up and its approach to using public subsidy in a way that gives back to […]

ARCHIVE INTERVIEW: SONIA FRIEDMAN. In October 2003, producer Sonia Friedman sat down to discuss the state of the West End with critic Dominic Cavendish. The picture wasn’t rosy: the war on terror had triggered a downturn in audiences, the National Theatre’s new £10 Travelex tickets had massive undercut market prices and mega musicals were running […]

INTERVIEW: NEIL AUSTIN. The celebrated British lighting designer tells Luke Jones about the tricks of his trade and touches on a rich variety of shows including Albion at the Almeida Theatre, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Marianne Elliot’s Company. Recorded in September 2018. “Lighting is impossible to describe in advance. It’s invisible until […]

INTERVIEW: JONATHAN PRYCE. Jonathan Pryce talks about appearing in Florian Zeller’s The Height of the Storm, in which he plays a novelist who may or may not be grieving for his wife of many years, played by Eileen Atkins. He also tells Heather Neill about his varied 50 year career, including Comedians, for which Trevor Griffiths wrote the part of […]

INTERVIEW: APRIL DE ANGELIS. The playwright tells Lyn Gardner about her latest work, an adaptation of Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna titled The Village. They discuss relocating the Spanish play to contemporary India, its parallels with the rising right and the #MeToo movement, and the difference between adaptation and original work. Recorded at Theatre Royal Stratford […]

INTERVIEW: WINSOME PINNOCK. As her first play Leave Taking is revived at the Bush, Winsome Pinnock – “the godmother of black British theatre” (The Guardian) – talks to Simeilia Hodge-Dalloway about how she came to write it and, indeed, to writing. They discuss the roles and responsibilities that writers of colour face in British theatre, […]

INTERVIEW: SARA KESTELMAN. As the Victoria and Albert Museum acquires her archive for its Theatre and Performance Collection, acclaimed actress Sara Kestelman looks back over the course of a career filled with influential productions. She tells critic Heather Neill about her breakthrough performance in Peter Brook’s iconic A Midsummer Night’s Dream, about playing Goneril to […]

INTERVIEW: ROSE FENTON AND LUCY NEAL. In this archive interview, the founders of the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) tell Dominic Cavendish about its beginnings. Looking back over the festival’s first 25 years, they remember pulling the opening programme together on a budget of £100,000, paying artists £5 per diem and hosting picnics in […]