Gareth John Bale

Director

Gareth is from Ynysmeudwy in the Swansea valley. He trained as an actor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, graduating in 2002.

Gareth’s recent directing credits include CARWYN (w. Owen Thomas) for the Torch Theatre Company, which has toured Wales twice. He has also directed WEST (w. Owen Thomas) which opened in Milwaukee in 2019. It has since toured Wales and has been performed in New York, London, Minneapolis, at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, where it won a Best of Broadwater Award and was nominated in three other categories.  For RCT Theatres, Gareth has twice directed DAU (Welsh language adaptation of TWO by Jim Cartwright) and MISS JULIE (w. August Strindberg, Welsh adaptation) which toured Wales.

His first directing job was with Cwmni Theatr 3-D Theatre Company, whom he has worked with since their formation in 2004. He helped form the artistic program of the company working on new and established plays in English and Welsh, and directed ENDORFFIN, EPA YN Y PARLWR CEFN (w. Sion Eirian), ABIGAIL’S PARTY (w. Mike Leigh), DON’T DRESS FOR DINNER (w. Marc Camoletti), the ZUFALL and ANGEL FESTIVALS (w. Various), and RICHARD PARKER (w. Owen Thomas). RICHARD PARKER (in which Gareth also performed) toured the UK and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2011 and the Hollywood Fringe Festival, winning Best International Show in 2012.

He has worked extensively with BlackRAT Productions Theatre Company, as an assistant director and actor. He was assistant director to Richard Tunley on UP ‘N UNDER (w. John Godber), ROMEO AND JULIET (w. William Shakespeare), NEVILLE’S ISLAND (w. Tim Firth), BOEING BOEING (w. Marc Camoletti), BEDROOM FARCE (Alan Ayckborn) and THE 39 STEPS (Patrick Barlow), gaining plenty of experience, especially in comedy, along the way. He directed AN EVENING WITH GARETH BALE – a Welsh football-inspired comedy for voices for Men of Harlech Theatre Company. Gareth also directed BENNY (w. Owen Thomas), a play about the late comedian Benny Hill, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Gareth has a good understanding of pantomime having directed two Welsh language pantomimes – PWS MEWN BWTS and DACW MAM YN DWAD (w. Martyn Geraint) and was Assistant Director on RCT’s JACK AND THE BEANSTALK and CINDERELLA (w. Richard Tunley).

He has worked as a producer and a researcher on Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of the Fringe in Edinburgh, and has several years’ experience working on Fringe Festivals.  Gareth also works as a director/guest lecturer at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (Young Actors Studio), Trinity Saint David, Coleg Sir Gar, Bridgend College and Coleg Gwent.  Being bi-lingual, he is equally happy working in both English and Welsh language.

Lisa Jên Brown

Intimacy Coordinator

Lisa is Wales’ first certified intimacy coordinator working bi-lingually in Welsh and English.  Her multi-disciplinary background comprises performing, writing, composing and wellbeing facilitation as well as intimacy coordination.  This grounding, alongside being able to converse fluently in Welsh and English, gives her a unique insight into the mindset and needs of both cast and crew alike.

Lisa trained on the Moving Body Arts Intimacy Coordinator Certification Programme for Film & TV, a SAG-AFTRA accredited programme, where she was mentored by industry-leader Yarit Dor.

Intimacy coordination credits include: ON THE SEA (dir Helen Walsh, Red Union Films), POBOL Y CWM (dir Various, BBC Studios for S4C), ROWND A ROWND (dir Various, Rondo for S4C), HOW THIS BLIND GIRL CAN (dir Mared Jarman, Boom Cymru for S4C), HAFIACH (Dir Rhodri Jones, VOX Pictures for S4C), and DYSGU HEDFAN (Dir Juliet Manon, It’s My Shout for S4C).

Lisa is a BECTU IC Branch committee member.

Maisie Carter

Fight Director

Maisie discovered fight choreography while training at Guildford School of Acting, and then progressed to qualify as an instructor with the Academy of Performance Combat. She now runs her own company, MC_Combat, advocating for female fights and providing training in stage and screen combat.

Select fight director credits include THE LEFTBEHINDS (National Theatre), ROMEO & JULIET, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, THE TEMPEST and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre), BACKSTROKE (Donmar), REYKJAVIK, MALINDADZIMU, THE DIVINE MRS S and THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (Hampstead Theatre), THE CLINIC (Almeida), FIREBIRD (King’s Head Theatre), SUMMER 1954 (English Touring Theatre), FAVOUR and FAIR PLAY (Bush Theatre), LAVA and THE MINISTRY OF LESBIAN AFFAIRS (Soho Theatre), THE MOUNTAINTOP (Chipping Norton Theatre) and the UK tours of THE COMMITMENTS and THE BOY AT THE BACK OF THE CLASS.  Maisie has also worked on several operas: IL TRITTICO (WNO), RIGOLETTO (Royal Opera House), and TOSCA (The Grange Festival).  Associate fight director credits include KISS ME KATE (Barbican), AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN (UK Tour), THE DRIFTER’S GIRL (Garrick Theatre), Les Misérables (Sondheim Theatre), BLUE BEARD and BUGSY MALONE (UK Tours) and THE GUNPOWDER PLOT (Layered Reality).

Screen credits include THE WASP (XYZ Films) with Natalie Dormer and Naomi Harris, THE FORGE (Mind Engagement Productions) with James Cosmo and GAVIN & STACEY: THE FINALE (Tidy/BBC).

 

Kev McCurdy

Fight Director

Kev is an Equity Registered Fight Director. He is also the Fight Instructor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama as well as the Co-Founder, a Fight Examiner and Senior Stage Combat Tutor of the Academy of Performance Combat (APC).  He works in a wide range of disciplines across film, television, and theatre.

Film includes: The Lady of Heaven; Season Of The Witch; John Carter Of Mars; Journey’s End; Kenya; Canaries; Carmilla.

Television includes: The Pact; Eastenders; The A List; Hetty Feather; Hollyoaks; Pobol Y Cwm; Rownd a Rownd; Keeping Faith; Craith/Hidden; Cleddau/The One That Got Away; 4Stories; The Story of Tracy Beaker. Y Golau

Selected Theatre credits include: Stranger Things: The First Shadow (Phoenix Theatre), Les Misérables (Sondheim Theatre & UK Tour); Miss Saigon (Prince Edward, UK and European tour); O Island, Ivy Tiller: Squirrel Killer, The Tempest (RSC); Frankenstein, Hamlet, Let The Right One In (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Anthony & Cleopatra, Mosquitoes, Barbershop Chronicles, Othello (National Theatre); Eyam, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Taming Of The Shrew (Shakespeare’s Globe); Billy Elliot (Curve); Glory (The Dukes, Lancaster & UK tour); The Comedy About A Bank Robbery (UK Tour); Sylvia, Jitney (Old Vic); Hamlet, The House of Shades (Almeida); Little Foxes, Fairview, Mandela (Young Vic); The Wife of Willesden (Kiln); Bajazet (Irish National Opera Tour & Royal Opera House); Moreno (Theatre 503); An Enemy of The People (Duke of York Theatre), Guardians Of The Galaxy (Secret Cinema); Red Pitch (The Bush Theatre); Marys Seacole, The Fear of 13, Trouble In Butetown (Donmar Warehouse); Punch (Nottingham Playhouse), Sister Act (UK tour & Eventim Apollo); The Colour Purple (UK tour)