JULIET STEVENSON
Voice of the Storyteller/Doctor’s wife
Juliet Stevenson is one of Britain’s leading actors. Her most recent theatre credits include The Doctor - for which she won the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Actress and is currently nominated forthe Olivier Award for Best Actress, Mary Stuart, Hamlet (Almeida/West End); Wings, Happy Days (Young Vic). Juliet won the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance in Death and the Maiden, and has been nominated a further five times.
Juliet has received five BAFTA nominations for her work on screen. Her films include Truly, Madly, Deeply - Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actress; Bend it like Beckham; When did you last see your Father?; Being Julia.
Juliet’s latest television work includes Riviera and Out of her Mind, a comedy series with Sara Pascoe. Her other credits include One of Us and The Enfield Haunting, and she appeared as a series regular in Atlantis and The Village. She was awarded the CBE in 1999.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Author
José de Sousa Saramago was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasising the theopoetic human factor.
More than two million copies of Saramago's books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages. A proponent of libertarian communism, Saramago criticized institutions such as the Catholic Church, the European Union, and the International Monetary Fund. An atheist, he defended love as an instrument to improve the human condition. In 1992, the Government of Portugal under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva ordered the removal of one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from the Aristeion Prize's shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Disheartened by this political censorship of his work, Saramago went into exile on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where he lived alongside his Spanish wife Pilar del Río until his death in 2010.
SIMON STEPHENS
Writer
Simon Stephens is an Olivier and Tony award-winning playwright. His theatre credits include Fortune (Metropolitan, Tokyo); Maria, Rage (Thalia, Hamburg); The Three penny Opera (NT); Fatherland (MIF 2017/Lyric Hammersmith/LIFT Festival 2018); Heisenberg (West End); Obsession (Barbican/Toneelgroep, Amsterdam); The Seagull, Herons, Morning,Three Kingdoms, A Thousand Stars that Explode in the Sky, Punk Rock (Lyric Hammersmith); Carmen Disruption (DeutschesSchauspielhaus/Almeida); Nuclear War, Birdland, Country Music, Bluebird (Royal Court); The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time - Olivier and Tony Awards for Best New Play (NT/West End/Broadway); A Doll’s House (Young Vic/West End); Sea Wall (Bush); Harper Regan, Port (Royal Exchange, Manchester/NT); On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange,Manchester). He has also written for film, television and radio.
Simon is a professor at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University andArtistic Associate at the Lyric Hammersmith.
DONMAR WAREHOUSE
The Donmar Warehouse is a 251-seat, not-for profit theatre in Covent Garden, London, led by Artistic Director Michael Longhurst and Executive Director Henny Finch. Their mission is to bring together a wide variety of people in their intimate warehouse space and elsewhere to create, witness and participate in thrilling, world-class theatre.
The Donmar has won more than 100 awards in its 28 year history, with highlights of the programme including founder artistic director Sam Mendes’ productions of Cabaret (with Alan Cumming) and The Blue Room (with Nicole Kidman). Michael Grandage (Artistic Director 2002-2012) brought notable productions of Othello with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor, and Red with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne. Josie Rourke (AD 2012-2019) brought Tom Hiddleston in Coriolanus, and a trilogy of all-female Shakespeare plays directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Current Artistic Director Michael Longhurst’s inaugural 2019-20 season focused on important stories, thrillingly told, and included new play by leading writers including Branden Jacobs - Jenkins, Alice Birch and Mike Lew.
