Lucas' KING KONG Musical Sets Sights on Broadway

By: Sep. 16, 2010
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Carmen Pavlovic, C.E.O. of Global Creatures, the company behind the phenomenal world-wide success, Walking with Dinosaurs - the Arena Spectacular, has announced that a creative team has been assembled and work has begun on KING KONG - Live on Stage, an entirely new production conceived for the Broadway stage. KING KONG - Live on Stage is authorized by the estate of Merian C. Cooper (Creator of KING KONG and director of the 1933 film).

KING KONG - Live on Stage is the latest project from the Australian-based Global Creatures, an international entertainment group that develops new and exciting theatrical productions to take to audiences all around the world. Their animatronics arm, The Creature Technology Company invents and deploys the latest in animatronic design. Global Creatures is the company behind the hugely successful Walking with Dinosaurs - the Arena Spectacular, which established a new entertainment genre that has been seen by millions of people and broken box office records in Australia, Europe, Asia and North America since its inception in 2007. Earlier this year, Global Creatures announced a collaboration with DreamWorks Animation to conceive and execute an arena show based on the film How to Train Your Dragon.

To bring KING KONG to the stage, Global Creatures has brought together an award-winning, international creative team highly regarded for their work in theatre and opera.

Directed by Daniel Kramer and written by Tony nominee Craig Lucas with new music by BAFTA winner and Grammy nominee Marius de Vries (who will also arrange the period songs featured in the production), the creative team for KING KONG - Live on Stage also includes Helpmann Award-winner Peter England (Production Design), Sonny Tilders (Creature Design), John O'Connell (Choreography),Tony Award-winner Roger Kirk (Costume Design), Olivier Award-winner Peter Mumford (Lighting Design), Gavin Robins (Aerial/Circus Direction), and Frieder Weiss (Projection Design).

One of the greatest love stories of all time, KING KONG - Live on Stage will feature a cast of more than 40 onstage actors, singers, dancers and puppeteers. The adventure begins in 1933 in New York City at the height of the Depression. The music in KING KONG will feature several new songs by Marius de Vries, who is also writing the incidental musical score, as well as arranging the standards that will be featured in the production.

Producer Carmen Pavlovic said, "At its heart, KING KONG is a love story which is why we have chosen the more intimate space of a proscenium theatre to tell this epic tale. We want to immerse the audience in the emotional journey of the book and music as much as the spectacle of our pioneering animatronics and puppetry.

"We are honored to collaborate with the Merian C. Cooper Estate. Through the input of Cooper's son Richard and daughter Terry we have a lifeline to the heart and mind of the great man and the thinking that informed his iconic creation.

"Cooper's intent was simple - to create a great story about an encounter between a beauty and a beast. However in reviving this story our theatrical challenge is to find something new to say. Kong is about love but it is also about many other things - a fall from grace, community; sacrifice and the consequences of degrading a culture and its environment. These themes are startlingly relevant today and some of what we hope to explore in our re-telling.

"The title and themes of KING KONG are universal, however New York is its spiritual home and therefore it seems fitting that the story is ultimately told there. I wanted a team who could speak to an existing Broadway audience but also respond to the next generation of theatregoers. Our version of KING KONG is an ode to the sweeping romance of the 1930's but it is also very much about today. I was drawn to Daniel Kramer's ability to preserve the classic story yet look at it through a contemporary cultural lens and in that regard there was an immediate meeting of the minds between us.

"We created Global Creatures to develop shows for audiences around the world. KING KONG moves us beyond an arena spectacle and into the realm of a classic musical theatre genre. The show is the next step in a diverse roster of work we have in development. Our workshop process for Kong has been invigorating and as a result it's possible that the production could come to Broadway as soon as 2013. A schedule will be set shortly."

Director Daniel Kramer is best known for his distinguished theatre and opera work in New York and London, including the acclaimed Woyzeck which played at St. Ann's Warehouse and Bluebeard's Castle at the English National Opera.

On the announcement of KING KONG - Live on Stage, Mr. Kramer said, "King Kong on Broadway will combine film, television and theatre's most exciting and classical vocabularies into one live event: projection, animatronics, puppetry and circus arts all taken to new heights and of course those timeless elements that Broadway pioneered and perfected: the 11 o'clock number, an electrifying singing and dancing Broadway chorus, a live orchestra, edge-of-your-seat story-telling, and some good old fashioned stage magic. To quote Merian C Cooper's exquisite novella, King Kong aims to be "Something never before seen."

Craig Lucas, book writer for KING KONG said, "I am thrilled to be part of this project, working with a team of world-class colleagues, a producing dynamo, on a myth that speaks to man's precarious relation to the natural world, poised as we are right now between annihilation and a slim chance of salvation."

Sonny Tilders, one of the major creative forces of the high-tech world of animatronic puppetry for film and television, was one of the lead animatronic engineers for Jim Henson's Creature workshop on the "Farscape" series, followed by work on Star Wars: Episode III and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Mr. Tilders said, "With the animatronics involved in this project, we are making huge leaps from what we created for the Dinosaurs, because here KING KONG is the key character who will have to command the stage and act alongside actors, when he scratches his nose, for instance, it will have to be done in one fluid, controlled motion where all the muscles up his arm will move at once and he has enough control not to accidentally punch a hole in his face!'

For more information, visit www.kingkongliveonstage.com.

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DANIEL KRAMER - Director

Born and raised in Wadsworth, Ohio, USA, Daniel began acting, singing and dancing at age 9 in the American high school spring musical tradition. Here his passion for the arts was born and quickly led him to study ballet, piano, singing and acting as a young professional - taking him as far as LaRochelle, France and London as an exchange student where he furthered his studies in ballet and acting at age 16. Daniel then attended Northwestern University, Chicago. It was here his focus shifted from acting to directing & devising, his work including Falsettos, Jesus Christ Superstar, Into the Woods and a myriad of original works fusing his ongoing training in modern dance and theatre and his developing knowledge of Performance Studies under the guidance of such Professors as Mary Zimmerman and Frank Galati. Daniel received his degree in Theatre, Performance Studies and Dance, graduating summa cum laude with an Honors Thesis in Theatre. Daniel was then the youngest recipient of the NYC Drama League Scholarship in 1999, moving to New York and directing Blood on the Cat's Neck, The Quiet Game, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice at the Hangar Theatre. From here Daniel was hired to teach Shakespeare and Directing at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, NYU; Daniel also became Richard Foreman's assistant for 3 months working on Foreman's Bad Boy Neitzsche. Daniel's NYC debut was his devised work, Funhouse, in the first ever NYC Fringe Festival, followed by his radical adaptation of The Crucifixion: A York Mystery Play at the Blue Heron Arts Theatre. Daniel then received a three year full ride scholarship to pursue his graduate studies in Europe. Daniel furthered his physical theatre training at the Etienne's Decoux School of Corporeal Mime in London, Antonio Fava's International School of Commedia dell'arte, and London Circus Space. Daniel then made his professional debut in London at age 25 with Franz Xavier Kroetz's Through the Leaves at Southwark Playhouse which, subsequently transferred to the West End and received Evening Standard and Olivier Award Nominations. Daniel then became an associate at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill where he directed Woyzeck and his radical reinvention of Hair. For both of these productions Daniel was nominated for the ES Outstanding Newcomer Award as well as being named a Creative Associate at the RSC. Woyzeck then took Daniel back home to NYC, playing at St Ann's Warehouse where it received 3 Drama Desk Nominations including Best revival. Daniel then staged Bent starring Alan Cumming in the West End, and the first national revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America for which he garnered three TMA Nominations including Best Director. His first opera, Punch & Judy with the English National Opera at the Young Vic, won the Outstanding Achievement in Opera award and quickly led Daniel into the opera world where he directed the world premiere of Rufus Wainwright's opera, Prima Donna, followed by Duke Bluebeard's Castle, his ENO mainstage debut for which he received the Times Newcomer Award for Opera. Daniel is currently working on an array of operas and plays which will find him back home in NYC as well as Russia, Switzerland and Germany.

CRAIG LUCAS - Book

Craig Lucas' plays include Prelude to a Kiss, Missing Persons, Blue Window, Reckless, God's Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Small Tragedy, Prayer For My Enemy, The Singing Forest and Love & Irony. He wrote the book for The Light In The Piazza, music and lyrics by Adam Guettel; the musical play Three Postcards, music and lyrics by Craig Carnelia; the libretto for the opera Orpheus in Love, music by Gerald Busby; and he has recently completed Two Boys, an opera with composer Nico Muhly. His new English adaptations include Brecht's Galileo, Chekhov's Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya, and Strindberg's Miss Julie. His screenplays include Longtime Companion (Sundance Audience Award), The Secret Lives of Dentists (New York Film Critics Best Screenplay), Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless and The Dying Gaul, which he also directed. Lucas also directed the film Birds of America. Onstage he directed Harry Kondoleon's plays Saved or Destroyed at Rattlestick (Obie Award for Best Director) and Play Yourself as well as his own play This Thing of Darkness (co-authored with David Schulner) at the Atlantic. Twice nominated for a Tony (Prelude to a Kiss and The Light in the Piazza), three times for the Drama Desk (Prelude, Missing Persons and Reckless), he has won the L.A. Drama Critics Award (Blue Window), the American Theater Critics Award for Best American Play (The Singing Forest), the Hull-Warriner Award (The Light in the Piazza), the LAMBDA Literary Award (for his anthology What I Meant Was), the Flora Roberts Award, the Greenfield Prize, the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Laura Pels/PEN Mid-Career Achievement Award; he has twice won the Obie Award for Best Play (Prelude and Small Tragedy).

MARIUS DE VRIES - Music

Marius de Vries has been involved in some of the most culture-defining recordings and soundtracks of the past two decades, and has won two BAFTAs and an Ivor Novello award for his film composition work, as well as four Grammy nominations for soundtrack and record production. Beginning his musical career playing keyboards for the English eighties pop-soul band The Blow Monkeys, he has since written, arranged, and produced across a wide range of styles and genres for Madonna, Bjork, Rufus Wainwright, Neil Finn, Annie Lennox, Bebel Gilberto, David Gray, PJ Harvey, U2, Massive Attack, Elbow, Teddy Thompson and Josh Groban, amongst many others. His film music career took off in the mid-nineties - his collaboration with Nellee Hooper and Craig Armstrong on the soundtrack and score for Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet won Marius the first of his two BAFTAs. A few years later, he music-directed the groundbreaking Moulin Rouge, starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, resulting in another Grammy nomination, a second BAFTA, and numerous other awards. Marius also composed the score for Stepan (Priscilla Queen of the Desert) Elliott's surreal thriller The Eye of the Beholder, and last year's jazz-age period comedy Easy Virtue. In the world of Musical Theatre, Marius has worked several times with Andrew Lloyd- Webber, with his co-production of the cast album for A.R. Rahman's Bombay Dreams, and his production and orchestration work on this year's sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, as well as producing the cast album for Richard Thomas' hugely successful (and equally controversial) West End comedy hit Jerry Springer - The Opera. In early 2008 Marius created an hour-long contemporary dance piece, Squaremap of Q4, for the award-winning Spanish choreographer Rafael Bonachela; this premiered at the South Bank in London. He has also recently completed work on the eclectic Chinese singer Sa Ding Ding's second album for Universal Records, Harmony, recorded in Beijing and mixed in London. 2010 has seen Marius contributing score and song productions to Matthew Vaughn's irreverent superhero film Kick-Ass, and Zack Snyder's music-driven action fantasy Sucker Punch, as well as co-producing an LP with and for Robbie Robertson, featuring guests Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Tom Morello and others.

PETER ENGLAND - Production Designer

Received aBachelor of Performing Arts in Design National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1994 following a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (Honours) from the University of New South Wales in 1986. Peter won the Robert Helpmann Award for Best Stage Design in 2001 for Awakening (Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony), in 2002 for Sweeney Todd (Opera Australia) and, in 2004 for Unaipon (Bangarra Dance theatre). He received the Victorian Green Room Award for Best Opera Design in 1998 for Madama Butterfly (Opera Australia) and 2002 for Sweeney Todd (Opera Australia) and for Best Dance Design in 2005 for Boomerang (Bangarra Dance Theatre). In 1997 He was awarded the NIDA Mike Walsh Fellowship, and in 2002 was a Finalist in the international design competition for the Pentagon Memorial, Washington DC (with Room 4.1.3). Other theatre design credits include: For Sydney Theatre Company: Tot Mom, Woman in Mind, Victory, The Virgin Mim, The School for Scandal, Betrayal and The Jungle. For the Shakespeare Theatre, Washington DC he designed Hamlet, Richard III and Titus Andronicus. For Opera Australia his productions include Simon Boccanegra and La Boheme. Other designs include Orpheus and Eurydice (Victorian Opera), Antony and Cleopatra (Bell Shakespeare), Man of La Mancha (Gordon Frost Organisation + SEL). For Bangarra Dance Theatre Peter has designed Mathinna, Clan (Green Room Award nomination 2004), Bush (Helpmann Award Best Dance Work 2004), Walkabout (Helpmann Award Best New Australian Work and Green Room Award nomination 2003), Skin (Helpmann Award Best New Australian Work and Green Room Award nomination 2000), and Fish (Green Room Award nomination 1998). For The Australian Ballet his work includes Aesthetic Arrest, Amalgamate and Rites. For Sydney Dance Company and Shanghai City Dance (China) he designed Mulan. Peter's other major event and installation credits include: Walking with Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular (Global Creatures) Australian and US tour (THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Billboard Award for Creative Content in 2008), and Notes on a Separation (Sydney Theatre Company and IWC, Geneva). He was site designer for Universal Playground, (Adelaide Festival of Arts 2004), Kin (2007 Asia Pacific Triennial festival of Contemporary Art), and co-designer of Sydney Handover, 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games Closing Ceremony. As an installation designer he made Stairways (2003 Rugby World Cup, Sydney). He was an exhibition designer at the Mary McKillop Museum (Sisters of St Joseph); staging and concepts designer for Art House Hotel; and, production designer of three City of Sydney New Years Eve Celebrations on and around the Harbour, including Millennium which featured the giant floating Sea Creatures Lantern Parade and the Eternity and Smile effects on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

SONNY TILDERS - Creature Design

As a leader in his field, Sonny Tilders has spent the last 22 years designing and building critters and contraptions for the film and theatrical industries. He is presently undertaking his next challenge as Creative Director of Creature Technology Company (CTC), the workshop that designed and built the dinosaurs for the enormously successful theatrical touring show Walking With Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular. Under Sonny's guidance, CTC continues to be at the forefront of technologically advanced animatronic creature and puppet design and is recognized internationally for its work. With formal training in graphic design, Sonny graduated from Swinburne University, Melbourne in 1988. He worked the next 10 years at Australia's foremost models and effects company, Mothers Art Productions in Melbourne where he was Senior Project Manager. Sonny then pursued his interests in the specialized field of "animatronics" (the world of high-tech puppet making). His work can be seen in US feature films such as Peter Pan, Ghostrider, The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars III - The Revenge of the Sith as key animatronics engineer. His television credits include Lead Animatronics Engineer for the US science fiction series "Farscape" where working with the resources of the Jim Henson's Creature Shop he developed his approach to animatronics creature design further. This was also a catalyst for working on puppets for Australian theatrical touring productions of The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

JOHN O'CONNELL - Choreographer

An internationally acclaimed choreographer for film, television and the stage, John O'Connell is probably best known for the international box office hits, Shall We Dance, Moulin Rouge, Strictly Ballroom, Enchanted and Baz Luhrmann's Australia. John's most recent film choreography was for David Furnish/Elton John's Gnomeo and Juliet in 2009. Other films choreographed by John include Razzle Dazzle, Romeo+Juliet, Muriel's Wedding, Peter Pan, Passion, The Quiet American, The Matrix Revolutions, Scooby Doo, Children of the Revolution, Me, Myself & I and The Crossing. Known as a choreographer to the stars John has worked with some of the biggest names in the business including Nicole Kidman, Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Susan Sarandon, Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey and many others.For television he has worked on Come in Spinner, Brides of Christ, The Party Machine, Lucinda Smith and the Australia Remembers Gala tribute. In 2008/09 John choreographed a musical entitled Rudolf in Vienna, prior to which he choreographed the 80th Academy Awards (the Oscars) in Los Angeles 2008. Earlier in 2009 he choreographed The Rocky Horror Show for New Theatricals; The Convict's Opera for the Sydney Theatre Company and The Sentimental Bloke for Riverside Theatre. In 2007, he choreographed the Sydney Theatre Company's Tales from the Vienna Woods and Kookaburra's Company. He has been the Staging Director for the international tour of Il Divo, and for Company B he choreographed Threepenny Opera and Keating! (winner of the Helpmann award for best musical in 2007). His other stage and theatre credits include the award winning Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (Ensemble Theatre); The Magdricals for Sydney Opera House; Baz Luhrmann'sDance Hall and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Australian Opera, winner of most popular production at the 1996 Edinburgh Festival); Bananas in Pajamas, Emerald Room (STCSA), Burger Brain for (ATYP); Venetian Twins (Royal Queensland Theatre Company); Kissing Frogs (Glynn Nicholas Group); Barry Humphries' one-man stage show, Remember You're Out; South Pacific, which toured nationally and internationally (GFO); Sweet Charity, The Pajama Game, Assassins, Kiss Me Kate and Once on this Island (NIDA). John has also worked in international fashion creating and directing Colette Dinnigan's Salon of Images in 1997 in Sydney, as well as two of her fashion events in the Louvre in Paris. John has worked extensively in cabaret, including a starring role in Graham Bond's Captain Bloody, also featuring in his self-devised Boarder Line Cases with the Flying Trapeze Theatre, Soul Cha Cha with Renee Geyer, Burlesco at Melbourne's Universal Theatre and various other productions at Kinselas including the Lamont Cranston musicals. In New York, John choreographed Spiegelworld's Desir (2008) - a mix of circus and burlesque. Other awards John has received include Best Choreographer (Moulin Rouge, 2001) at the American Choreography Awards, the highest accolade for dance in America, and winner, Australian Dance Award for Contribution to the Art of Dance, 1993. In 1989 John received the Golden Platypus Award for The Aquacade, for most popular event at the Brisbane Expo. John has also devised his own how-to-dance comedy show, Mr Cha Cha Says Dance, which featured at the Perth International Arts Festival in 2005 during which he taught 3000 people to Mambo.

ROGER KIRK - Costume Designer

Tony Award winning designer Roger Kirk has extensive experience as a set and costume designer for theatre - including drama, musicals, opera and special events - as well as film and television. Roger's credits include set and costume design for Graeme Murphy's Die Silberne Rose and Le Corsaire at the Munich Opera House - both for The Bayerisches Staatsballet. Opera Australia's recent productions include costumes for Manon Lescaut, The Gypsy Princess, Pirates of Penzance and My Fair Lady. Roger also designed sets and costumes for A Little Night Music, Iolanthe , HMS Pinafore, Trial by Jury, Manon and Tales of Hoffman. Roger also designed for Graeme Murphy's opera Aida. In 1996 Roger received the Tony Award for Best Costume Design for his work on the Broadway production of The King and I. He also received the Drama Desk Award, the Friends of New York Award, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for the same production. In 2001 the highly acclaimed production of The King And I was a popular feature at London's Paladium Theatre. Roger also repeated the costume for the Stratford festival production of the King and I in Canada. Roger's musical credits include sets and costumes for Aspects Love UK tour and West End. Costumes for the Jesus Christ Superstar UK tour and Broadway and 42nd Street Broadway - US tour, Stuttgart, Tokyo and Asian tour. Whistle Down the Wind in London, The Boy from Oz in Australia and Hugh Jackman's - Boy From OZ Arena Spectacular and he also designed the sets and Costumes for Dusty - The Original Pop Diva and Shout!. Roger received the Victorian Green Room Awards for best costumes for Anything Goes, Boy From Oz and Dusty.

PETER MUMFORD - Lighting Designer

Peter Mumford trained as a stage designer at the Central School of Art in London, studying under Ralph Koltai, in the late Sixties. In 1969, during his last year at art school, he became a founding member of the mixed media experimental theatre group Moving Being (director Geoff Moore), with whom he worked as designer and lighting and projection designer on all productions until 1978, moving to Cardiff with the company in 1972. After that he continued to work with Moving Being on a project basis but began a wider based freelance career. In the late Seventies he became a part time member of the faculty of the London Contemporary School of Dance at The Place, teaching a course relating choreography to visual art and design and also at that time began collaborating with a number of choreographers in their early work at The Place, such as Siobhan Davies, Richard Alston, Ian Spink and many others. When the company Second Stride was formed in the early Eighties Peter was a founding collaborator as lighting designer - another working relationship that would last for nearly another decade. In the Eighties, Peter designed the lighting for a huge number of dance works for companies such as London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Rambert, Second Stride, Siobhan Davies Co. and many other individual projects at that time. He also continued to design projects with Moving Being like the major site specific "Mabinogion" - first at Carnarvon Castle and later in Cardiff. His work gradually expanded into opera, designing sets/costumes and lighting for Parsifal for WNO in 1978 and then into drama more towards the end of the Eighties. The Overgrown Path at The Royal Court in 1985 was the first straight play he lit in London. In 1987 he co-founded Dancelines Productions, a film/TV production company committed to creating and producing dance for television. He produced and directed many programmes/films for Dancelines for both Channel Four and BBC2 up until the mid- Nineties and during that period the work won many awards including OperaScreen IMZ 1991- Best New Work / DanceScreen 1992 - Best Studio Adaptation/ Video Danse Grand Prix 1994 - best series (Dance House) and an Emmy Nomination for the TV adaptation of Mathew Bourne's Swan Lake which Peter directed. The last real work in this area was the series 48 Preludes and Fugues (Bach) for BBC2 in 2002 - 48 short films, of which Peter directed 24 and was lighting director on the rest. His work is now predominantly in the area of lighting design, but still designs sets on certain projects and most recently was Director of Photography for Francesca Zambello's film of The Little Prince. He has directed on occasion in the theatre as well as film/TV. Productions include Hamletmachine and No, to the Yes-sayer (Jasager/Neinsager); both at St. Stephens Theatrespace in Cardiff. The Man with the Foot-soles of Wind; Almeida Opera. Earth and the Great Weather; Almeida Opera. L'Heure Espangnol & L'Enfant et Les Sortileges; Opera Zuid. Work in the theatre nowadays, is spread fairly equally across drama, dance (ballet) and opera. Most recent work includes Petrushka (Scottish Ballet); Prick Up Your Ears (Comedy Theatre, London); Bedroom Farce and Miss Julie (Rose Theatre, Kingston); Bluebeard's Castle (English National Opera); c*ck(Royal Court Theatre); The Misanthrope (Comedy Theatre, London); Carmen (The Metropolitan Opera House, New York).


GAVIN ROBINS - Aerial/Circus Director

Gavin Robins draws inspiration from a broad spectrum of theatre training and performance experience. His work focuses on the biomechanics of the actor and the animation of the actor for both the stage and screen. He has toured internationally as a physical performer with Legs on the Wall with many productions including the renowned All of Me. He was instrumental in the training and choreography of the Tin Symphony in the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Olympics. He has created large-scale visual and aerial performances in many theatre festivals throughout the world. As a recipient of the Churchill Fellowship Gavin worked in LA and NY alongside leading specialists in animating the body for the stage and screen. Director: High Flyers, Festival First Night Sydney Festival, At First Sight, National Institute of Circus Arts, La Fanciulla del West (AD), Opera Australia, Sydney Festival First Night, Sydney Festival (AD),Kaleidoscope, Cirque Du Soleil/ATYP, Wars of the Roses (AD) Bell Shakespeare Co, Wicked Bodies, La Boite. Gavin's credits as a Movement Director and Choreographer include: Wrong Skin, Adelaide Festival/Malthouse, La Fanciulla del West (AD), Opera Australia, The Sydney Theatre Company, The Crucible, Gallipoli, BlackBird, Tales From the Vienna Woods, Riflemind, The Art of War, Ruby Moon, Season at Sarsaparella, Troupers, The Bourgeois Gentleman, Fat Pig, Woman in Mind, The Lost Echo, Mother Courage, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, Company B, The Promise, Reuben Guthrie, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Conversations With the Dead, Spook, The Chairs, The Bell Shakespeare Company, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Antony & Cleopatra, R&J, Tempest, Richard lll, Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, Servant of Two Masters, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wars of the Roses, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Pericles. At the Queensland Theatre Company he worked on Christmas at Turkey Beach and School for Scandal; and at the Ensemble Theatre Co, Are You There. For Television and Film his credits as movement director include "Farscape" Series 2, The 2001, 2002 and 2004 "ARIA Awards," "The AFI Awards," and "Australian Idol" (series1, 2 and 3) as well as the Australian feature film Prime Mover and TV series "Spirited." Gavin has worked as a movement coach with all of Australia's major record labels. He trains artists for the stage and screen and has directed performers in numerous video clips, commercials and large scale stage performances. Gavin is a teacher of movement and acting at a host of our leading performance training institutions. Award include: 2007 Churchill Fellowship, 2001 Asialink Travelling Fellowship, 1999 Mike Walsh Travelling Fellowship, N.I.D.A.1998 Tongue Tied Third Prize, Tropfest, and the 1996 Herald Angel Award, Edinburgh Fringe Festival

FRIEDER WEISS - Projection

Frieder Weiss is a Berlin based video and installation artist and expert for real-time computing and interactive computer systems in performance art. He is the author of video motion sensing software especially designed for use with dance, music and computer art. As a pioneer in the field of intermedia performance he becameco-director of Palindrome Performance group, developing mediaperformances which toured worldwide and have received numerous awards (Transmediale, Berlin; CynetArt Dresden). Inspired by his work with Australian Dancer Emily Fernandez he developed an aesthetic which tightly integrates visual media with the moving body. Frieder created the video projections and interactivetechnologies for Chunky Move's recent works Glow and MortalEngine. For his contribution on Glow he was rewarded with a Greenroom award for Design in Dance . Mortal Engine was awarded the 2008 Live Performance Australia Helpmann Award for Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production. Other recent works were developed with Leine and Roebana in Amsterdam, phase7 in Berlin, Helga Pogatschar, Cesc Gelabert in Munich, the Danish Dance Theatre in Kopenhagen, im'ij-re in San Francisco, Transmedia Academy Hellerau in Dresden, Daniel Knorr at Kunsthalle Basel, Kylie Minogue in London.

CARMEN PAVLOVIC - CEO, Global Creatures

Carmen was educated in Melbourne and holds a Bachelor of Arts and an MA in Business Administration. Throughout the 1990s, Carmen's career spanned various theatre companies and in 1998 she joined the Really Useful Company as executive producer of Cats, Grease and Shout! In 2001 she relocated to London as executive producer at Clear Channel Entertainment producing various shows including the UK and international productions of Chicago and Cats. Later Carmen became the Director of the International Production Department for Stage Entertainment responsible for establishing new territories (Russia, Italy and France), licensing, programming of 25 theatres across Europe and overseeing all productions in the UK, Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Spain and Russia. For Stage Entertainment Carmen was also the international executive producer of the European premiere of Dirty Dancing in Germany and subsequently Holland, the Russian speaking productions of Cats and Mamma Mia! (the first open-ended musicals in Moscow); the French speaking productions of Sam Mendes' Cabaret at the prestigious Folies Bergeres and The Lion King at the Mogodor Theatre in Paris.

 

Photo: King Kong from the original 1933 film, battles aeroplanes on the Empire State Building.



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