Open Rehearsal: Mephisto [A Rhapsody]

Born in 1981, Samuel Gallet is a playwright and poet- he regularly adapts his dramatic poems for the stage with a company of musicians. The majority of his work has been produced in France and internationally as well as being broadcast on France Culture Radio. He runs the Eskander collective and is co-director of the department of writing and dramaturgy at the Ensatt. Among his work, which has been published by Editions Espaces 34, are the following plays: Autopsie du Gibier (in the collection Le Monde Me Tue), Encore un Jour Sans, Communiqué n°10 (2011), Oswald de Nuit, a trilogy including Oswald, L’Ennemi and Rosa, (2012), Issues  (2015), La Bataille d'Eskandar (2017), La Ville Ouverte (2018), Mephisto Rhapsodie (2019).

Current and future credits include: Avalanche (Barbican - dramaturg); Tao of Glass (Manchester International Festival), Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran (Traverse - co-creator). Theatre works include: I’m a Phoenix, Bitch (Battersea Arts Centre, touring - co-director), Grimm Tales (Unicorn); The Distance (Roundhouse); Misty (Bush Theatre/West End - dramaturg); The Believers Are But Brothers (Bush Theatre, Ovalhouse, West Yorkshire Playhouse Transform17 season and Northern Stage Edinburgh – co-director); Myth (RSC – co-written with Matt Hartley) The Encounter (Complicité, EIF, Warwick Arts Centre, Theatre Vidy, Bristol Old Vic, UK tour - co-director); A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer (dramaturg, National Theatre and Complicité, director – international tour); Wanted (Chris Goode and Company, Transform Festival, West Yorkshire Playhouse); Walking the Tightrope (Offstage and Theatre Uncut); All I Want (Live Theatre, Leeds Libraries and Jackson’s Lane); Mass (Amy Mason at Bristol Old Vic, Camden People’s Theatre); The Beauty Project, Theatre Uncut 2012 (Young Vic); How to Be Mortal (Penny Dreadful at Soho and tour); Bandages (Corn Exchange Newbury and tour); 9 (West Yorkshire Playhouse for Chris Goode and Company); Thirsty (The Paper Birds). Kirsty has been the recipient of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award and the Title Pending award for innovation at Northern Stage. She is an associate of Complicité and working with a number of independent artists.

Basia is a performance designer based in London. Before completing a theatre design course in the UK, she trained in fine arts in her native Poland. She is the overall winner of the Linbury Prize for Stage Design 2017 with the winning design for Lyric Hammersmith's production of Othellomacbeth. She was nominated for the Best Designer at the Stage Debut Awards 2018 and has been recently nominated for an Offie for Best Set Design for Blood Knot at Orange Tree. Recent credits include: Crooked Dances (Royal Shakespeare Company), Acts of Resistance (Headlong Theatre & Bristol Old Vic), Wolfie (Theatre503), Blood Knot (Orange Tree Theatre), Othellomacbeth (Lyric Hammersmith & Home Manchester), Cuckoo (Soho Theatre), Devil with a Blue Dress (Bunker Theatre). Upcoming: Ivan and the Dogs (Young Vic).

Lighting Designer credits include: EQUUS (ETT); Pah-la (Royal Court); Armadillo (The Yard); Seven Methods of Killing Kylie (Royal Court);The Human Voice (Gate Theatre); Cuckoo (Metal Rabbit Productions); Snowflake (Arts Old Fire Station); One (Bert & Nasi International Tour); Forgotten (Yellow Earth & Moongate UK Tour); Dear Elizabeth (Gate Theatre); Into The Clouds (Nonsuch Theatre Company International Tour); Hive City Legacy (Hot Brown Honey & Roundhouse);The Party’s Over (Nonsuch Theatre Company); Gypsy Disco (Boomtown Festival); Becoming Shades (Chivaree Circus); Nine Foot Nine (Sleepless Theatre Company).

Chris was Deputy Literary Manager of the National Theatre for six years and is currently Literary Manager of the Royal Court. He has translated plays by Philippe Minyana, David Lescot, Rémi de Vos, Adeline Picault, Magali Mougel, Launcelot Hamelin, Frédéric Blanchette, Catherine-Anne Toupin and Fabrice Roger-Lacan for The National, The Almeida, The Donmar, The Traverse, The Birmingham Rep and The Young Vic among others. His translation of Right Now was co-produced in 2016 by the Traverse, Bush and Ustinov theatres and in 2017, Oberon Books published a collection of his contemporary French translations. In 2014 Chris was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. As an actor Chris has worked at theatres including The National, The Royal Court, The Traverse, The West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Birmingham Rep, The Gate and English Touring Theatre. Directors have included Howard Davies, Sir Richard Eyre, Sir Peter Hall, Richard Wilson, William Gaskill, Erica Whyman, Stephen Daldry, Ian Brown and Annie Castledine. He most recently appeared alongside Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady.