Susannah has worked in a variety of art forms, including a ten-year career as an opera singer in which she performed principal roles in many of the world’s leading opera houses. She is now a writer and director, whose first novel was published by Black Swan in 2004 and second novel will be published by Doubleday in February 2006. Her music theatre piece, the regina monologues, commissioned by the Covent Garden Festival in 2001, has toured extensively to music and literary festivals across the UK, and other recent commissions for theatre pieces have included a piece on conscientious objection to war for New Kent Opera’s 2003 season, and a fifteen-minute play in reaction to the war on Iraq for Brighton-based theatre company ‘Theatre and Beyond’. As a director, she has also worked for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, New Kent Opera, and in 2003, semi-staged Verdi’s Falstaff for Mark Elder and the Halle Orchestra. She has recently led a three-month education project on Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte for AS students in music and dance as part of an education project for the new Sage Gateshead Music Centre in Newcastle and the Samling Foundation, culminating in a performance of a youth version of the opera. Her site-specific play, Red All Over, which she also directed, was recently premiered in Pelham House as part of the Lewes Live Literature Festival, with support from Arts Council England, South East.
MARK SHAYLE – GENERAL MANAGER OF THE PADDOCK
Mark is a graduate of the Central School of Speech and Drama. Between 1985 and 1995 he was a Stage Manager and Production Manager in many theatrical environments, from repertory to small scale touring; working on shows like Miss Saigon and Me and My Girl in the West End; Tour Managing the Kirov Ballet and Moscow Classical Ballet throughout the UK; Stage Managing the UK tour of Oklahoma!; and too many fringe shows to list.
In 1995 he joined Apollo Leisure as a Production Manager, primarily touring large-scale musicals around the UK. He traded as a freelance Production Manager under the banner Ideal Production Services between 1997 and 2001, working in both the corporate and theatrical sectors working all over the world. Between 2001 and 2005 Mark headed up the Stage Management and Technical Theatre Course at LAMDA, one of the most renowned training programmes of its kind. In 2005 he returned to freelancing primarily undertaking project based work in and around Sussex. Mark lives in Lewes with his partner Pat, and their daughter Jessica.
NUM STIBBE - ASSOCIATE DESIGNER
Num Stibbe has worked in opera, film and theatre. Originally from Israel she now lives with her family in Lewes. As head of the Scenery and Props department at the New Israeli Opera she also designed opera and developed educational workshops bringing opera into the community.
She has worked with scenery workshops throughout Europe including La Monnaie in Brussels, Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, Amsterdam and Cologne and in New York. Her latest design work for the theatre was in Rome, mostly working with Imogen Kusch and the Teatro Klesidra, and production work at Cinecittà.
She is currently designing two Ravel operas for the Royal College of Music.
See also www.stibbe.plus.com
