Creative Team

• Kerry Michael
  

  Kerry Michael

  Director

  Director

  Kerry has been the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Theatre Royal Stratford East since 2004. He upholds the theatre’s commitment to develop new work and to provide a platform for those voices underrepresented in the ever-changing communities of East London.

  In 2007 Theatre Royal Stratford East was nominated for an Olivier Award for ‘presenting a powerful season of provocative work that reaches new audiences’. Its hip-hop production Boy Blue’s Pied Piper won an Olivier the same year. The following year, Kerry’s production of Cinderella was nominated;  the first pantomime ever nominated in the award’s history. In 2012, in association with the Barbican, we won the Olivier Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre’ for Cora Bissett’s immersive theatre experience Roadkill. We received a further nomination for You Me Bum Bum Train.

  Kerry pioneered the OPEN STAGE project, where Theatre Royal Stratford East became the first theatre to hand over its programming to its audiences in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. During these Games, Theatre Royal Stratford East hosted Nigeria’s Hospitality House (Nigeria House). 30 Nigeria House is a project coming out of that residency where there was secured commissioning grants for 30 young artists of Nigerian heritage

  In 2014 Kerry worked with partners in Brazil and delivered Home Theatre where bespoke one-person shows were developed and co-created for homes in the favelas of northern Rio. The technique and mythology has grown with two consecutive seasons in Birmingham and London (UK), and most recently, the townships of Pretoria and Johannesburg in South Africa. There are also plans for a third season in Rio in the run up to their Games in 2016, followed by New Mexico and the West Bank.

  Kerry’s recent directing credits include Tanika Gupta’s Love n Stuff, the John Adams opera I Was Looking At the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky (a co-production with the Barbican Centre); Cosh Omar’s The Great Extension; The Harder They Come, which transferred to the Barbican and then to Playhouse Theatre in the West End before touring to North American and Canada; Ray Davies’ Come Dancing; and the world premiere of Takeaway, the first British Chinese musical of that scale.

  Kerry is a member of Equity’s International Committee for Artists’ Freedom.

• Paul Sirett
  

  Paul Sirett

• Neil Irish
  

  Neil Irish

  Set & Costume Designer

  Set & Costume Designer

  Neil trained in Birmingham and later at the Slade, UCL.
  Neil has designed productions for Cambridge Arts Theatre, RADA, St Ann’s Warehouse, NYC; Riverside Studios, London; Watermill Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Birmingham Rep, Nottingham Playhouse, the Crucible, Sheffield; Hull Truck, Gate, London; Gate, Dublin; Pavilion Theatre, Dublin; Derby Theatre, Scarborough Theatres, Watford Palace, Greenwich Theatre, Liverpool Everyman, Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh; and Arcola Theatre, London.
  Recent projects include: Alice in Wonderland (Watermill Theatre); Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (London and Hong Kong); Il trittico (Opera Holland Park); The Taming of the Shrew and The Wind in the Willows (Guildford) and The Winter’s Tale (Guildford Shakespeare Company).
  Tours include: Red Shift Theatre and Compass Theatre Co, Atak Theatre, Istanbul; BAM, New York; and St Ann’s Warehouse, New York.
  Neil has designed operas for Opera Theatre Company, Eire; English Touring Opera, Almeida/ENO Festival, London; Danish Opera, Opera Holland Park, Garden Opera, BAM, New York; Opéra Comique, Paris; New Zealand Opera and W11 Children’s Opera.
  Forthcoming projects include: House and Garden (Watermill); Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Frankfurt); Tommy (UK tour); Julius Caesar (Guildford); Don Giovanni (Opera Holland Park) and The Price, a new opera about the suffragettes (W11 Opera).
  Neil has also worked in both set and costume departments for BBC TV.

• Robert Hyman
  

  Robert Hyman

• Mark Smith
  

  Mark Smith

  Choreographer

  Choreographer

  Mark Smith studied at the Royal Ballet School and Bridget Espinosa’s London Studio Centre (voted Best Soloist in 1989). He was presented East Anglia’s Young Deaf Achiever in 1989, which was awarded by Princess
  Diana at the Café Royal, London. As a performer, he has appeared with dance companies throughout the UK and Europe including Firefly, La Ribot and the Aaron Williamson Dance Company.
  Choreography includes: Paralympic opening ceremony – London, 2012 (co-directed by Bradley Hemmings MBE and Jenny Sealey MBE); My Silent World (commissioned by Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt – artistic
  directors of Ballet Boyz, which was a short film for Channel 4’s Random Acts, directed by Luke Aherne); Iolanthe (Union Theatre and Wilton’s Music Hall, directed by Sasha Regan – Critics’ Choice and Time Out’s Top 10 Musicals of 2010; for this production, Mark was also nominated for Best Choreographer in the Off West End Theatre Awards and the BroadwayWorld UK Awards); Shoes (Mark was one of five choreographers along with Kate Prince, Aletta Collins and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui for Sadler’s Wells, directed by Stephen Mear and written by Richard Thomas); The Who’s Tommy – 30th anniversary (Greenwich Theatre, directed by Michael Strassen; for this production, Live Theatre and British Theatre picked Mark as Best Choreographer of 2015); Die Fledermaus (Den Norske Opera and Ballett – Oslo Opera House, directed by Laurence Dale); A Marvellous Year for Plums (Chichester Festival Theatre, directed by Philip Franks); Blood Wedding (Graeae, Derby Theatre and Dundee Rep Ensemble, directed by Jenny Sealey MBE); As You Like It (Oxford Shakespeare Company, directed by Michael Oakley); The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Chichester Festival Theatre, directed by Dale Rooks); Ace of Clubs (Union Theatre, directed Jack Thorpe-Baker; nominated for Best Choreographer for the Off West End Theatre and BroadwayWorld UK Awards); The Threepenny Opera (Graeae Theatre Company/New Wolsey Theatre/Nottingham Playhouse Theatre/Birmingham Repertory Theatre/West Yorkshire Playhouse, directed by Jenny Sealey MBE and Peter Rowe); Noah (Chichester Festival Youth Theatre 50th anniversary, directed by Dale Rooks); Reasons to Be Cheerful (Graeae’s UK tour, directed by Jenny Sealey MBE); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, directed by Dale Rooks); Aladdin (Hammersmith Lyric, directed by Steve Marmion); Alive! (outdoor UK Festivals – Deaf Men Dancing in collaboration with visual artist Rachel Gadsden, directed by Mark Smith); TEN and Embrace (Lord Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival – Deaf Men Dancing commissioned by Greenwich + Dockland International Festival, directed by Mark Smith); Hear! Hear! and Rosa (Deaf Men Dancing and DMD+ for Sadler’s Wells, directed by Mark Smith); The SoundMan (DMD for Incloodu Festival and Sadler’s Wells, directed by Mark Smith); Let Us Tell You a Story (Deaf Men Dancing, commissioned by Exceptional & Extraordinary, directed by Mark Smith); Cabaret (Mountview, directed by Bronagh Lagan); Just So (Chichester University, directed by Sarah Redmond); The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Arts Educational Schools, directed by Thom Southerland); Peter Pan (Chichester University, directed by Charlotte Conquest); The Boys From Syracuse (Union Theatre, directed by Ben DeWynter); Sequins and Snowballs and Wheels on Broadway (Graeae Theatre’s Rhinestone Rollers at Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank); Carousel (Royal Academy of Music, directed by Ken Caswell); Marry Me a Little and Starting Here, Starting Now (Chichester University, directed by Ed Burnside); Money Makes the World Go Round (Carnival UK/Three Pins Productions, directed by Tim Welton) and West Side Story (Music Theatre Project, directed by Kirk Jameson).
  Mark was one of the three artists selected to create new work at Integrated ChoreoLAB, co-produced by Pavilion Dance South West/GDance/South East Dance, and the work was presented at the Integrated Dance Summit. He is the founder and artistic director for his own dance companies Deaf Men Dancing and DMD+.
  Mark Smith is a member of International Dance Council CID. Mark was delighted to be invited by Sadler’s Wells to be a judge for BBC Young Dancer 2016.
  For more information about Mark Smith and DMD, please visit: www.marksmithproduction.com.

• Arnim Friess
  

  Arnim Friess

  Lighting and AV Designer

  Lighting and AV Designer

  Arnim trained and worked as a photographer and audio-visual media designer in his native Germany, before moving to the UK to study scenography, receiving an MA at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. He is the founder member of Pixelbox Ltd, which specialises in designing dynamic performance environments, blending lighting, motion graphics and video projection, animation and film-making. His lighting and projections have been seen not only in theatres around the world, but also in a zoo, a monastery, an abandoned pub, St Paul’s Cathedral and deep down in a cave in the Forest of Dean. Performances in the UK, China, Canada, the USA, Ireland, India, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Denmark have spanned diverse arts forms, from theatre to opera and ballet via puppetry, Indian dance, experimental music and children’s shows.
  Recent designs include: The Bloody Irish (Dublin, broadcasting on US television and Broadway, NY, in 2016); The Etienne Sisters (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Lamentations (Vocalconsort Berlin); Best Man (Everyman, Cork); Alice in Wonderland (Polka Theatre); Leviathan (Matadero Madrid); Cougar – the Musical, Stars in the Morning Sky and One Night in November (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry); Piaf, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Gypsy and Hello, Dolly! (Curve, Leicester); Ghosts in the Walls (RSC); BBC’s Grandpa in My Pocket (Nottingham Playhouse and touring); The Awkward Squad (Arts Theatre, London); The Rememberers (Birmingham Rep with Apples and Snakes); Wander (Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Hong Kong); Take (Washington DC); Lucky Seven (Hampstead Theatre); The Death of Harry Leon (Ouroboros Theatre, Dublin) and the National Holocaust Memorial Day in Coventry.
  Past designs have been science-fiction opera The Pitchshifter for leading Dutch contemporary music ensemble Insomnia; award-winning Rumblefish, Looking for J J, Road and Lord of the Flies (Pilot Theatre); bricks-in-space spectacle Life on Mars (Legoland worldwide); the appearance of hundreds of angels inside St Paul’s Cathedral for the City of London Festival; Joe Guy (Soho Theatre); The White Album (Nottingham Playhouse); The Long Road (Curve, Leicester); The Saint of Bleecker Street (Peacock Theatre, West End); Amour (Ovalhouse, London, and the Dance Centre, Toronto); Mine, Moll Flanders, Metropolis and The Importance of Being Earnest (KAOS Theatre); Paradise (Birmingham Rep); Angels in America (Sheffield Crucible); Oliver! (Liverpool Playhouse); Mozart’s Mass in C minor (Birmingham Royal Ballet); Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette (Snap Theatre); The Wall, King and Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (Midlands Arts Centre); Bryony Lavery’s Shot Through the Heart (Pentabus Theatre); A Hard Day’s Night (Hull Truck Theatre Company) and The Suicide and An Inspector Calls (Theatr Clwyd).
  Arnim also works as a photographer and graphic designer and lives in Warwickshire with his family, an overly dramatic cat and Lottie the dog. He enjoys playing drums and experimental cooking for fearless friends.

• Andrew Johnson
  

  Andrew Johnson

  Sound Designer

  Sound Designer

  for Creative Technology
  Andrew has spent the last 17 years working in sound and the last nine years working in professional theatre as production sound engineer, operator, assistant sound designer, associate sound designer and sound designer.
  Andrew was shortlisted for Best Sound Design for Mack & Mabel at the Off West End Awards and for Titanic at the Broadway World UK Awards.
  Theatre includes: The Play That Goes Wrong (Lyceum, Broadway); Death Takes a Holiday (Charing Cross); Promises, Promises, Allegro, The Toxic Avenger, Grey Gardens, Grand Hotel, Dogfight, The A- Z Of Mrs P, Victor/Victoria, Mack & Mabel and Company (Southwark Playhouse); Christina Bianco – Oh Come All Ye Divas! and Ragtime (Charing Cross); Lee Mead – Some Enchanted Evening (UK tour 2016); Girlfriends (Mountview); Sinbad the Sailor (Theatre Royal, Stratford East); The Play That Goes Wrong (Duchess and UK tour 2016); The Secret Garden (New Ambassadors/British Theatre Academy); The Stripper (St James); Les Misérables (Surrey Youth Music Theatre); GSA Foundation Showcase (GSA/University Of Surrey); Titanic (Charing Cross and Southwark Playhouse); An Inspector Calls (UK tour 2016); The Witches (Curve, Leicester and UK tour 2016); Robin Hood, Shalom Baby and A Clockwork Orange (Theatre Royal, Stratford East); Bells Are Ringing, Catch Me If You Can, The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee, The Concrete Jungle and Bat Boy (ArtsEd); The Smallest Show On Earth (Mercury, Colchester and UK tour); West End Men (UK tour 2015, Vaudeville, winter UK tour 2012 and Singapore); Bruce Forsyth Entertains (Palladium 2015 and UK tour 2014); Sleeping Beauty (Millfield); Calamity Jane (UK tour 2014/2015); Let It Be (UK tour 2014, Moscow, Japan tour and Monaco; head of sound, Savoy 2013); Rent (UK concert tour 2013/2014); Hormonal Housewives (UK tour 2013); The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice (UK tour 2012 and 2013); Beauty and the Beast (SYP, High Wycombe 2012); High School Musical 2 (SYP, Hastings 2012); Search for a Twitter Star Live Finals (Lyric); West End Eurovision 2012 (Dominion); Midnight Tango (Aldwych and UK tour 2011); Snow White and Cinderella (Qdos, Hastings); Top Hat and Britain’s Got Bhangra (UK tours 2011); West Side Story (HQ, High Wycombe); The Last Five Years (Tabard); Legacy Falls (New Players); Buddy – the Buddy Holly Story and Cats (Channel Islands); Departure Lounge (Waterloo East); An Evening With Blake, Matt Monro Jnr, Our House, Beauty and the Beast, Hairspray and Jus’ Like That (UK tours 2010); End of the Rainbow (Northampton); Cats (international arena tour); Les Misérables Concerts, Cacophony, Noise Ensemble, High School Musical 2, Rent and Fame (UK tours 2009); Shout (UK tour 2008 and Arts); The Wedding Singer (UK tour 2008); Little Shop of Horrors (West End 2007 and UK tour 2009); Footloose (UK tour 2006, 2007, 2008 and West End 2006, 2007); Rent Remixed (Duke Of York’s); Fiddler on the Roof (Savoy); An Epitaph for George Dillon (Comedy) and Loveshack the Musical (UK tour 2005).
  One day events include: Hastings Beer and Music Festival 2016; Follies (London Palladium 2007); Side By Side By Sondheim (Novello 2007); Flying with the Stars (London Palladium 2008); Boogie For Stu (New Ambassadors); West End Live (2013/2014) and Proms in the Park (2012/2013). Andrew was also arena sound operator for the London 2012 Olympics at Horse Guards Parade.
  Forthcoming: The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Theatre Royal, Stratford East); The Play That Goes Wrong (Lyceum, Broadway) and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Wilton’s Music Hall).
  Andrew is a project manager for Dimension Audio, part of Creative Technology.
  www.dimension.co.uk

• Jeni Draper
  

  Jeni Draper

  BSL Creative Consultant

  BSL Creative Consultant

  Jeni is the artistic director of fingersmiths (www.fingersmiths.org.uk), a visual physical theatre company working with Deaf and hearing actors in BSL and spoken English. She is also a qualified sign language interpreter, specialising in theatre.
  Recent work includes: research and development Up ‘n’ Under by John Godber (fingersmiths/New Wolsey Theatre); consultant/interpreter for Jumble Soul (Jackie Hagan research and development Unlimited); Silence by Nicky Werenowska (research and development – Mercury Theatre); Frozen (fingersmiths and Birmingham Rep co-production) and War Crimes for the Home, Don’t Leave Me Now, Counting the Ways and The Merry Wives of Waltham.
  Upcoming work includes: Invisible by Nicky Werenowska (Pulse Festival, Ipswich – research and development); dramaturg/consultant for Blocks (Toby Hulse/Oxford Playhouse) and development of a tri-lingual production for young people and the Swindon communities with Prime Theatre, Swindon, where Jeni is associate artist.

• Daryl Jackson
  

  Daryl Jackson

  BSL Creative Consultant

  BSL Creative Consultant

  Since gaining 2.1 BA (hons) in Deaf Studies with Interpreting English/BSL and Linguistics, Daryl has long since freelanced as a sign language consultant, translator, advisor, script supervisor, television presenter/reporter and actor. He frequently does in-vision translating for numerous television channels and websites. He is a sign language monitor for actors in theatre, actors in TV drama/film, and presenters in programmes and websites. He was a lecturer at Wolverhampton University, teaching interpreting, and is a sign theatre lecturer for Reading University and a visiting lecturer for seminars and teaching interpreting and sign language. He is a one-to-one tutor for interpreters who want to improve their translation skills and does various workshops.
  Theatre credits include: The Government Inspector (Birmingham Repertory Theatre/Ramps on the Moon); Motherland, Dysfunction and Children of a Greater God (Deafinitely Theatre) and The Exception and the Rule (Young Vic Theatre). He has also worked often coaching actors, deaf and hearing signers at Graeae, Unicorn, Sadler’s Wells, Gate Theatre, Green Candle, Almeida, Jacksons Lane and Drill Hall. He has also given translation assistance for BBC children’s programme My Almost Famous Family. He sign-coached a specialist actor as a lifelike gorilla for the Hollywood film Vanilla Gorilla (2009); assisted a deaf actor for another feature film, Goya’s Ghost (2009); supported two actors in Japanese feature film Choyua 5 (2008); gave BSL translation support for the Royal Court Theatre’s Constellations (2013 and 2015) and acted in the BBC drama Switch and several other films for BSLBT (a community channel). He has also performed for many outdoor musical festivals.
  He achieved a BAFTA Award nomination for directing a Film4 children’s drama; directed three different plays titled 4Play (2012–2015); performed for the 2012 Paralympic opening ceremony with Circus Space and Strange Fruit on sway pole.

• Nicola Miles-Wildin
  

  Nicola Miles-Wildin

  Associate Director

  Fight Director

  Directing credits include: Bingo Lingo (co-directed/created with Daryl Beeton); Two Can Toucan (TwoCan Theatre Company) and Nana’s Jumble (Kazzum).
  Assistant director credits include: The House of Bernarda Alba (Graeae/Manchester Royal Exchange); Lost & Found (GDance); Blood Wedding (Graeae/Dundee Rep/Derby Theatre); Waiting Game (Kazzum); Wheels on Broadway (Graeae) and Addressed to a Friend (Kazzum).
  Nicola is an associate artist for Graeae Theatre Company, Kazzum and GDance. She is chair of Theatre Gloucestershire.
  In 2014, Nicola co-founded TwoCan, Gloucestershire’s first professional disabled-led theatre company.
  Nicola is extremely excited to be part of the creative team for Tommy and the ‘amazing journey’ to get here.

• Bret Yount
  

  Bret Yount

  Fight Director

  Fight Director

  Recent theatre credits include: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Pinter Theatre); An American in Paris (Dominion Theatre); The Miser (Theatre Royal Bath/Garrick Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Young Vic); The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Experience (Hampstead Theatre Studio); Raising Martha and LUV (Park Theatre); The Children, X and Linda (Royal Court Downstairs); The Exorcist (Birmingham Rep); Lazarus (King’s Cross Theatre); One Night in Miami (Donmar Warehouse); The Mountaintop (Young Vic); King Lear (RSC); They Drink It in the Congo (Almeida); Strife (Minerva, Chichester); La bohème (Opera Holland Park); Don Carlo (Grange Park Opera); Romeo and Juliet, The Painkiller, Red Velvet and The Winter’s Tale/Harlequinade (Garrick Theatre/Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company); Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (Headlong); Only the Brave (Millennium Centre, Cardiff); Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (National Theatre); The Caretaker, The Master Builder and The Hairy Ape (Old Vic); Bad Jews (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Cyprus Avenue (Abbey Theatre, Dublin/Royal Court Upstairs); Primetime, Human Animals, I See You and Violence and Son (Royal Court Upstairs); Private Lives (ATG tour); Waiting for Godot, Romeo and Juliet and The Effect (Sheffield Crucible); The Winter’s Tale (Cheek by Jowl); The Wasp (Trafalgar Studios); First Love Is the Revolution (Soho Theatre); Hamlet (Barbican); Richard II (Globe Theatre); Tipping the Velvet (Lyric Hammersmith) and Medea (Gate Theatre).

• Polly Jerrold
  

  Polly Jerrold

  Casting Director

  Prior to becoming a freelance casting director, Polly worked at the Royal Exchange Theatre with whom she continues to enjoy a close relationship.

  Birmingham Repertory Theatre credits include: Of Mice And Men, Anita And Me, A Christmas Carol, Circles, Feed The Beast, Back Down and Folk.

  Other recent credits include: Wit (Royal Exchange) and The Ghost Train (Royal Exchange/Told by an Idiot); Peter Pan (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Brideshead Revisited (ETT & York Theatre Royal), Merlin (Royal & Derngate/Nuffield Theatre) and Beyond The Fence (Sky Arts, Wingspan and Neil Laidlaw Productions – Arts Theatre).

  Polly’s current credits include: A feature film based on Catherine Bruton’s novel We Can Be Heroes; Educating Rita (Hull Truck) and The Hound Of The Baskervilles (York Theatre Royal). She will also shortly begin casting for a major new production of a Broadway musical that will tour the UK in 2017.

• Oliver Vibrans
  

  Oliver Vibrans

• Kevin Jewell
  

  Kevin Jewell

  Assistant Choreographer

  Assistant Choreographer

  Kevin has always enjoyed dance, and took up ballet at the age of six. He studied sport science at the University of Brighton (after completing GCSE and A level dance), before completing his PGCE in dance (secondary). He has always been interested in dance and wanted to teach or perform. He has worked in state education for over 10 years, culminating in a head of expressive arts faculty position. He works as an examiner and Keynote Education course leader for dance teacher inset days. Kevin has performed and/or assisted outreach work with Signdance Collective, FRONTLINEdance and Magpie Dance, and is currently a member of Deaf Men Dancing. Kevin currently also works for Juka Dance, encouraging literacy through dance in primary schools. Kevin’s barriers are with those who are ignorant to disability or need educating about patience, tolerance and accessibility. He has completed mentoring schemes provided by One Dance UK and New Adventures (Overture) to help shape his practice and consider the future. Kevin is hoping to lead change and create new work for the inclusive sector as a teacher, manager or performer. It has been important for him to develop his professional knowledge by being involved as a RAD education committee member, completing his stage one and two British Sign Language courses, undertaking circus classes and volunteering where possible with dance companies. Kevin believes to make the most of new and different opportunities and research into the sector to make contacts and gain knowledge about it.

• David Young
  

  David Young

• Nikki Charlesworth
  

  Nikki Charlesworth

• Pete Townshend
  

  Pete Townshend

  Book, Music and Lyrics

  Book, Music and Lyrics

  Pete Townshend was a member of the Who from 1962–82; the group’s first recording was in 1964. He has written hundreds of songs, many of which have been chart hits. He has written and composed several major collections that have won international recognition; Tommy is the best known. He was awarded the Ivor Novello Award by his songwriter peers in 1981 and the British Phonograph Industry Award in 1983 for service to the British music industry. In 1990, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He has been nominated for two Grammys and an Academy Award (for the Tommy film score). He has, most recently, been honoured with the 1993 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Tommy on Broadway. Recordings with the Who (1965–82): My Generation, Who’s Next, Tommy and Quadrophenia (rock operas). Solo (1980–89): Empty Glass, All the Best Boys Have Chinese Eyes, White City: a Novel (with long-form video) and Iron Man (songs for a musical based on Ted Hughes’ original story. Publications: The Story of Tommy (with Richard Barnes) and Horse’s Neck. Active as a songwriter, performer and producer, he continues to work as an editor at Faber and Faber, which he joined in 1983. Married, with three children, he lives in Twickenham, England.

• Des McAnuff
  

  Des McAnuff

  Book

  Book

  Des received Tony Awards for his Broadway stagings of Big River (1985) and The Who’s Tommy (1993). He directed Lee Blessings’s A Walk in the Woods on Broadway in 1988 and in Moscow and Lithuania in 1989–90. He is director-in-residence of the La Jolla Playhouse, where he was artistic director from its 1983 revival until 1994, during which time the theatre won more than 200 awards for excellence. For the Playhouse, he directed Romeo and Juliet, A Mad World My Masters, Big River, As You Like It, The Seagull, The Matchmaker, A Walk in the Woods, Two Rooms, 80 Days, Macbeth, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Twelfth Night, Three Sisters, Elmer Gantry, Much Ado About Nothing, The Who’s Tommy and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. McAnuff’s play Leave It to Beaver Is Dead was produced in Toronto and NY City, where it received the SoHo Arts Award. A co-founder of the Dodgers, he directed its first production, Gimme Shelter (SoHo Arts Award), as well as Mary Stuart and How It All Began, when the theatre moved to the NYSF. McAnuff staged Henry IV Part One for Joseph Papp in Central Park and was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant for his play The Death of Von Richthofen As Witnessed From Earth, which he directed at the Public Theater (SoHo Villager Award). He has directed for the American Rep Theatre at Harvard, Yale Rep and Stratford Festival of Canada, and is a former faculty member of the Juilliard School. McAnuff is married to actress Susan Berman and they are the proud parents of Julia Violet.

• John Entwistle
  

  John Entwistle

  Additional Music and Lyrics

  Additional Music and Lyrics

  John Alec Entwistle (9 October 1944–27 June 2002) was the bass guitar player for the Who. He was born in Chiswick, a London suburb, in 1944 and joined Roger Daltrey in a pre-Who band, the Detours, in the early 1960s.
  Sometimes known as ‘Ox’, he was generally regarded as the quiet person in the Who. Bill Wyman described him as “the quietest man in private but the loudest man onstage”. He was a talented songwriter and artist.
  He wrote several well-known Who songs including ‘Cousin Kevin’, ‘My Wife’, ‘Boris the Spider’ and ‘Heaven and Hell’. Entwistle also contributed many backing vocals and horn performances to the group.
  In addition to his work with the Who, Entwistle was an accomplished solo artist, releasing a number of solo albums beginning in the 1970s. Entwistle’s contribution to rock bass playing was to create a driving lead role for the instrument. Rarely captured well in the studio, his style and sound was fully developed by the time of the Who’s ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’ performance for the Rolling Stones’ 1968 Rock and Roll Circus, as well as the seminal 1970 Live at Leeds concert recording. In concert, Entwistle and guitarist Pete Townshend frequently exchanged roles, with Entwistle providing rapid melodic lines and Townsend anchoring the song with rhythmic chord work. Entwistle also pioneered the use of roundwound steel bass strings, developed for him by the Rotosound company.
  Entwistle helped develop the percussive potential of the bass sound, creating an unusual right-hand ‘typewriter’ technique several years before slapping was introduced by funk pioneer Larry Graham. This percussive sound is evident in the bass solo from 1965’s crudely recorded Who single ‘My Generation’ (available on the My Generation album).
  Entwistle identified his influences as a combination of twangy rock ‘n’ roll guitarists such as Duane Eddy and Gene Vincent, American soul and R&B bassists such as James Jamerson, and his school training on French horn, trumpet and piano.
  John Entwistle died in 2002 in Las Vegas, on the eve of the first show in a US tour by the Who. Italian-born bassist Pino Palladino replaced him onstage.

• Keith Moon
  

  Keith Moon

  Additional Music and Lyrics

  Additional Music and Lyrics

  Keith John Moon (23 August 1946–7 September 7 1978) was the drummer of the rock group the Who. He was born in London in 1946, although he would later claim to have been born a year later.
  He is considered one of the most unusual and original drummers in rock and roll. His unorthodox and highly flamboyant style was only surpassed by his innate rhythmic sense. Moon had a style all his own and laid down some of the tightest drum tracks in rock and roll. Contemporary drummers such as Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker and John Bonham could all point to him as a major influence, and Moon’s anarchic, out-of-control style remains an influence on popular music today.
  Early in the Who’s career, the band acquired a reputation for destroying their equipment at the end of each show. Moon showed a particular zeal for this activity, wildly kicking and smashing his drums. During an appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour television show, he overloaded a drum with explosive charges which were detonated during the finale of ‘My Generation’, which according to legend resulted in permanent hearing damage for bandmate Pete Townshend and caused Bette Davis to faint. His antics earned him the nickname ‘Moon the Loon’.
  Moon quickly gained a reputation as being highly destructive. He was known to lay waste to hotel rooms, the homes of friends, and even his own domicile, often throwing furniture out of high windows and destroying the plumbing with firecrackers. While he never actually drove a car into a swimming pool, it’s not hard to imagine how such a story originated.
  Although his work with the Who dominated Moon’s career, he participated in a few minor side projects. In 1966, he teamed up with Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck and future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones to record an instrumental, ‘Beck’s Bolero’, released as a single later that year. Moon is also said to have named Led Zeppelin, remarking that the supergroup would “go down like a lead zeppelin”. In 1974, he released his first and only solo album, a collection of pop covers entitled Two Sides of the Moon. In 1971, he had a cameo-role appearance in Frank Zappa’s film 200 Motels. He acted in drag as a nun fearful of death from overdosing on pills. He also appeared as ‘Uncle Ernie’ in the film adaptation of Tommy. In 1976, he covered the Beatles’ ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ for the soundtrack of the documentary All This and World War II.
  Keith Moon’s final night out was as a guest of Paul McCartney at the preview of the film The Buddy Holly Story. After dining with his girlfriend and Paul and Linda McCartney, Moon returned with his girlfriend to his flat in Curzon Place, Soho. He died in his sleep at the age of 32, having overdosed on anti-seizure medication (taken as part of a programme to wean him off alcohol). He was replaced by the Faces’ drummer, Kenney Jones, and in recent tours by Zak Starkey.