Timberlake Wertenbaker – writer
As well as Our Country’s Good, for which she won the Olivier Award for Play of the Year, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, Timberlake’s plays include Three Birds Alighting on a Field (Writers’ Guild Award, Best West End Play; Critics Circle Awards, Best West End Play; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), The Love of the Nightingale (Eileen Anderson Central Television Drama Award), Galileo’s Daughter, After Darwin, The Break of Day, Credible Witness and The Grace of Mary Traverse. Her translations include Hecuba, Elektra, Filumena and Phedre.
Max Stafford-Clark – director
Max is Out of Joint’s Artistic Director, and a former Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre and the Traverse Theatre, as well as co-founder of the Joint Stock Theatre Group. A hugely influential director of new writing, his world premieres include Top Girls and Serious Money by Caryl Churchill, Shopping and F***ing by Mark Ravenhill, Rita Sue and Bob Too by Andrea Dunbar, and plays by Richard Bean, April De Angelis, David Hare, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Stephen Jeffreys, Sebastian Barry, Howard Brenton, Sue Townsend, Alistair Beaton, Jim Cartwright, Stella Feehily, Robin Soans and more. His acclaimed revivals of classics include Three Sisters, King Lear, She Stoops to Conquer and the world-touring Macbeth.
He has directed for the RSC, the National Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company and New York’s Roundabout Theatre and several of his productions have transferred to the West End, including the world premiere of Our Country’s Good, the hit comedy Feelgood, and last year’s 5-star revival of Top Girls.
Tim Shortall – Designer
Tim designed La Cage Aux Folles (West End & Broadway), Sweet Charity (West End) and the new production of Educating Rita (Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal, Bath). He also collaborated with Max Stafford-Clark and Out of Joint on Top Girls (Chichester, tour, West End), The Big Fellah, The Overwhelming (NT & New York) and King of Hearts. He has designed for productions by Terry Johnson, David Grindley and Rupert Goold and for theatres including the Almeida, Hampstead, the Bush, the Arts and the Queens (West End).
Johanna Town – Lighting Designer
Johanna was formerly head of lighting at the Royal Court. Her West End work includes the recent Betrayal, as well as Fat Pig, Via Dolorosa, Speaking in Tongues and Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs. Among many shows at the Court she designed My Name is Rachel Corrie (plus West End and New York), Rhinoceros, My Child, The Winterling, Terrorism, Under The Whaleback. Johanna has designed many shows for Out of Joint (most recently Bang Bang Bang) and for many of the UK’s major venues. See her website: www.johannatown.co.uk
Andy Smith – Sound Designer
Andy is the resident sound designer at the Octagon Theatre Bolton and has collaborated with Out of Joint and the Octagon on Bang Bang Bang (also Royal Court – listen to the brilliant soundtrack of Congolese dance music here) and Mixed Up North. Other productions include Sweeney Todd, Romeo and Juliet, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Price and more.