Creatives

Director: Brigid Larmour

Brigid Larmour has been Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Palace Theatre since August 2006.  She launched her first season in February with Alan Bennett’s Enjoy.  We That Are Left, a play she commissioned and developed with Gary Owen, is her first play as director.  
Brigid is a producer, director and teacher.  From 1998 to 2006 she was Artistic Director of Act Productions, a leading West End production company.  Favourite productions included Lee Hall’s Spoonface Steinberg, with Kathryn Hunter, directed by Annie Castledine and Marcello Magni; John Hurt in the Gate Theatre Dublin’s Krapp’s Last Tape; Jeremy Sams’ revival of Noises Off, set up in partnership with Sonia Friedman, which the National Theatre launched on the South Bank; Epitaph for George Dillon, directed by Peter Gill, with Joseph Fiennes, Francesca Annis and Anne Reid; and Kevin Elyot’s adaptation of And Then There Were None, directed by Steven Pimlott, with Tara Fitzgerald, Richard Johnson, Gemma Jones, Graham Crowden and Richard Clothier.  Brigid commissioned work from a range of writers including Richard Bean, Stephen Churchett, Louise Page, Jeremy Sams and Kevin Elyot, and set up productions in partnership with many subsidised companies including Nottingham Playhouse, the Gate Dublin and the NT, as well as collaborating with commercial producers like Sonia Friedman, Karl Sydow, Kim Poster and Nelle Nugent, in London and New York.  She also supported Matthew Byam Shaw’s first West End production and invited him to become an Associate of the company, leading to collaborations on Humble Boy, Don Carlos and Mary Stuart.
Her work as a director has focused on Shakespeare and new plays.  Brigid developed a series of promenade Shakespeares, Shakespeare Unplugged, for RNT Education, which broke down the barriers between actors and audience and made them interact.  It began as an educational tour and later toured to small and middle-scale venues and the Cottesloe, and the Lincoln Center in New York.  The plays were The Tempest (two productions), Henry V and 12th Night (two productions).  
Between 1989 and 1994 Brigid was Artistic Director of Contact Theatre in Manchester.  
Her own productions included classical plays like Measure for Measure and Joseph Mydell as Galileo.  She also produced the English premieres of work by writers like Harvey Fierstein (Safe Sex), the Scots poet Liz Lochead (Dracula and Mary Queen of Scots Got her Head Chopped Off, both of which she also directed), and Caryl Churchill.  She commissioned the first British plays to respond to the rave scene (Excess XS) and the cultural implications of the internet and virtual reality (Strange Attractors, a multi-media promenade production using computer graphics, mixed live into onstage video) both by the Manchester poet Kevin Fegan.  
As Associate Director at Contact Theatre from 1985 to 1987 she worked closely with Charlotte Keatley on her groundbreaking play My Mother Said I Never Should, leading to its successful premiere in 1987.  Having been rejected by all the major and new writing theatres before Charlotte brought it to Brigid, it won the George Devine award and became an international hit and a GCSE set text. Charlotte is now a Creative Associate at the Palace and is working on a new play with Brigid.  Brigid also directed a range of classical work at Contact including three Shakespeares and The Changeling.  
Brigid is a Granada trained TV director.  Her work includes: Badger by Charlotte Keatley (Granada TV) which was nominated for the Prix Danube and Half the Story, a documentary commissioned by BBC TV which she wrote and presented.  She was Theatre Consultant to the BBC4 plays series.  Productions included the Donmar’s production of John Osborne The Hotel in Amsterdam, the West End production of Woody Harrelson and Kyle Maclachlan in John Kolvenbach’s On an Average Day and an original studio adaptation of Pinter’s novella The Dwarfs.
Brigid has taught and directed Shakespeare at drama school, university and postgraduate level, in Britain and the US, including Juilliard in New York, and numerous projects at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Brigid trained at the RSC, as Assistant Director to Terry Hands.  



Designer: Hannah Clark

Hannah Clark

Hannah trained in Theatre Design at Nottingham Trent University and in 2005, completed an MA in Scenography with distinction at Central School of Speech and Drama for which she won an A.H.R.C. Award. She was a winner of the 2005 Linbury Biennial Prize for stage design.

Theatre designs include:
HOUSE OF AGNES (Paines Plough, Oval House Theatre, London); BREAKFAST WITH MUGABE (Theatre Royal Bath - Ustinov Studio); THE CRACKS IN MY SKIN (Manchester Royal Exchange Studio); ROADKILL CAFÉ PART 1 (Requardt & Company, Centro Coreográfico de Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal); OTHELLO (Salisbury Playhouse); WE THAT ARE LEFT (Watford Palace Theatre); WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); BIG LOVE (Gate Theatre, Notting Hill); TERRE HAUTE (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh / Trafalgar Studio 2 / UK Tour); JAMMY DODGERS (Requardt & Company, The Place, London / Royal Opera House 2, Clore Studio / INT Tour); THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (Bristol Old Vic); DEATH OF A SALESMAN, WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, BLUE/ORANGE, A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, I JUST STOPPED BY TO SEE THE MAN, TWO and FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE (Octagon Bolton).
 
Future work includes:
ROADKILL CAFÉ Part 2 (Requardt & Company, Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, Venice / The Place, London).



Music: Dominic Muldowney

Dominic Muldowney was Director of Music at the National Theatre, where he has written the music for over 80 NT productions, most recently for PRESENT LAUGHTER, PHILISTINES, PAUL, THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, CYRANO DE BERGERAC, MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, THE TALKING CURE, VINCENT IN BRIXTON, ALL MY SONS and REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST. He is currently writing the music for their production of NEVER SO GOOD.

He also has numerous TV and film credits, and a long list of compositions written for major orchestras and soloists. He has written songs for David Bowie and Sting and makes regular appearances as conductor and pianist. His film and TV credits include BETRAYAL, THE PLOUGHMAN’S LUNCH, 1984, THE BEGGAR’S OPERA, THE GINGER TREE, THE BLACK CANDLE, TALES FROM HOLLYWOOD, SHARPE, EMMA, KING LEAR, COPENHAGEN, BLOODY SUNDAY and STELLA STREET. His orchestral music includes a Piano Concerto (Peter Donohoe/BBCSO), a Saxophone Concerto (John Harle/London Sinfonietta), a Violin Concerto (Tasmin Little/Royal Liverpool Philharmonic), a Percussion Concerto (Evelyn Glennie/Bournemouth Sinfonietta), and an Oboe Concerto (Roy Carter/LSO). He won the 1997 Sony Award and the Prix Italia for his radio opera THE VOLUPTUOUS TANGO. His opera RED RAZZMATAZZ was broadcast by the BBC in 2005.



Lighting Director: Natasha Chivers

Movement Director: Shona Morris

Trained at Jacques Lecoq. Credits include: Twelfth Night (Chichester Festival Theatre), Nicholas Nickleby (Chichester Festival Theatre, West End, and Toronto), Le Grand Meaulnes (Cochrane Theatre), Servant of Two Masters (Vienna Kinder Theatre), workshop on Swine (National Theatre Studio), Lost Tourists (Pompidou Centre Paris), Scenes From the Back of Beyond (Royal Court), The Tempest (Liverpool Playhouse), Hamlet (West Yorkshire Playhouse).

She was resident movement coach at The Stratford Festival Theatre for two seasons where she was movement director on; King Lear, Love’s Labours Lost, Agamemnon, Electra, The Flies, The Birds, Henry VIII, and The Duchess of Mali.

Other credits include: Early Morning, Frankenstein and Stellerhof (National Theatre Studio), Il Turko In Italia (Broomhill Opera), The Snow Queen (Young Vic), Mowgli’s Jungle (Redgrave Theatre) Cider With Rosie and Thermidor (Contact Theatre) and assistant choreographer on Tess (Polanski).

Shona also teaches at the Drama Centre London and is also an actor.



Fight Director: Kate Waters

Kate is one of only two female fight directors on the Equity register.  She started her working life as a nurse, then she trod the boards, before she settled on choreographing fights for a living!

Kate has worked extensively in regional theatre, but this is her first visit to The Palace Theatre in Watford.  Recent work includes THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE, MACBETH, DUCHESS OF MALFI, FOXES & TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, (West Yorkshire Playhouse), THE CRACKS IN MY SKIN, WHO,S AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLF, KES, (Manchester Royal Exchange), ROMEO & JULIET, CYRANO DE BERGERAC & MARY STUART, (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton).

Kate has choreographed all the scraps at The Theatre by the Lake in Keswick over the past three years, productions include,  PRIVATE LIVES, SINBAD, OF MICE & MEN, THE RECRUITING OFFICER & OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD.

She has also worked regularly at the New Vic Theatre in Stoke.  Kate has enjoyed working in this theatre as it is in the round, which throws up all sorts of challenges for the Fight Director.  Shows she has worked on at The New Vic include,  JAMAICA INN, THE WIZARD OF OZ, SMOKE, KES & OLIVER.

Kate has choreographed all the fights for the acclaimed Bristol based company, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, including MACBETH & THE CHANGLING, which transferred to The Barbican.  She has just finished working on their production of HAMLET, directed by Jonathan Miller.



Casting Director: Gabrielle Dawes

Gabrielle Dawes is a freelance Casting Director, and an Associate of Chichester Festival Theatre.  

Theatre includes: Rupert Goold’s Macbeth (Chichester, West End & New York); The Norman Conquests, All About My Mother (Old Vic); Funny Girl, Hobson’s Choice, The Waltz of the Toreadors, Twelfth Night (Chichester); The English Game ( Headlong Theatre); The Elephant Man (Sheffield); New Voices 24-Hour Plays (Old Vic).  As Deputy Head of Casting at the National Theatre 2000-2006, award-winning productions included Caroline, or Change, His Dark Materials (original production and revival), Elmina’s Kitchen (original production, tour & West End), The Pillowman, and Coram Boy.

Television credits includes Harold Pinter’s Celebration and Elmina’s Kitchen by Kwame Kwei-Armah.  

Films include Perdie (BAFTA award for Best Short Film) and The Suicide Club.