PAUL SELLAR - Writer

Paul was born in London and studied Drama at Bristol University.

His plays include: The Bedsit at the Tabard Theatre, transferring to BAC as part of Time Out Critics Choice Season. Later that year it was produced by The Assembly Rooms for the Edinburgh Festival. Other plays at the Edinburgh Festival include: Dark is the Night, a stage adaptation of The Night Wire and The Waxwork which formed a double bill of mystery and suspense, and a farce, Cell G 159, that was revived the following year as The Dead Move Fast.

2Graves premiered at The Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh (2006) before transferring to London where it re-opened The Arts Theatre. Directed by Yvonne McDevitt, the production featured an original score from Oscar- nominated composer Michael Nyman. 2Graves marked Paul’s West End debut.

Paul’s most recent play Worlds End previewed at the Pleasance Theatre for the Edinburgh Festival 2007 and transfers to Trafalgar Studios, West End in February 2008. His plays have been produced in Dublin and Chicago.

Previous commissions include The National Theatre, GB Productions, Camden Young People’s Theatre, Central School of Speech and Drama. His work has been developed at the NT Studio, The Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre (Studio) and The Old Vic. He is currently writing a drama for BBC Radio 3 (The Wire) and an original screenplay for Warp X Films (a joint initiative between Film4 and the UK Film Council). He is also writing a new stage play.

THE BEDSIT is published by Faber and Faber and THE DEAD MOVE FAST and 2GRAVES and WORLDS END are published by Oberon Books.

"An innovative playwright with a brilliant gift" Plays and Players

"A thrilling writer" Time Out

"Sellar continually defies expectation..." The Independent.

GUY RETALLACK - Director

Guy has been Literary Manager for Bill Kenwright Productions for the past two years; staged readings for BKL include Jack by Michael Rudman (Desmond Barritt and Alex Jennings), Bleak House by Charles Dickens, in a new version by Stephen Brown, and The Last Photograph by Gyles Brandreth, with songs by Susannah Pearse (Romola Garai and Simon Russell Beale) a new musical about Charles Dodgson and Isa Bowman. Guy has been the dramaturg on all of the above plays. In addition Guy has worked with Glyn Maxwell as dramaturg on Liberty (formerly The Man of Terror). Liberty is a part of The Globe's 2008 season. In 2007 Guy directed Future Me by Stephen Brown, with David Sturzaker in the lead role. Future Me was Time Out Critic’s Choice and is due to tour in Autumn 2008. As Director: The Lifeblood by Glyn Maxwell (Edinburgh & Riverside); Faster for The Brits Off Broadway Festival (59E59 Theatre, New York), National Hero with Timothy West and Nicola MacAuliffe (Edinburgh and National Tour), Tommy for Bill Kenwright, which was nominated for Best Musical by The Manchester Evening News Awards 2005. Other credits include The Secret Rapture (Lyric, Shaftsbury Ave), Office Games (Pleasance, London), Faster (Lyric, Hammersmith, BAC and International Tour), This Story Of Yours (New End), Richard 111 with Eddie Marsan (Pleasance, London), Emma with Doon Mackickan, nominated for Best Ensemble by the Stage 1998 ( Watford, Tricycle & Edinburgh), Dangerous Corner (Watermill, Newbury), and Hard Times (Watermill, Newbury), Things We Do For Love with Abigail McKern (Chester Gateway)and The Master and Margarita (BAC).

ANDY JORDAN - Producer

Works as a director and producer in theatre, tv, film and radio, where his experience has been wide-ranging, pioneering and award-winning. He trained in TV and Film at the BBC, and was a founder – along with Susi Hush, Alan Bell and James Bellini - of one of the earliest independent TV production companies, Playfair Productions, for whom he conceived the TV drama series Legs, written by the internationally acclaimed screenwriter Paula Milne, a co-production with LWT and Limehouse Films.

Andy founded the acclaimed multi award-winning Bristol Express Theatre Company, for whom he directed and produced over 100 new plays. He is one of the UK’s leading directors and producers of new writing, and is renowned for discovering and helping to develop literally hundreds of new writers, many of whom are now internationally recognised, including Jimmy McGovern (creator ‘Cracker’), Glenn Chandler (creator ‘Taggart’), Allan Cubitt (Emmy award-winning lead writer ‘Prime Suspect), Don Webb (creator ‘Byker Grove’), Paul Unwin (creator ‘Casualty’) and acclaimed National Theatre/Almeida Theatre/Royal Court Theatre writer, Richard Bean.

Andy has directed and produced new plays by countless other, established writers, including Athol Fugard, Peter Nichols, Nick Fisher, Alan Plater, Elaine Feinstein, Edward Bond, Bill Morrison, Michael Arditti, Paul Herzberg, the late Roy McGregor, Bonnie Greer, the late Michael Wall, Ronald Hayman, Neil McKay, Shaun McKenna and Richard Crane.

He has been particularly associated with the Edinburgh Festival, having won a number of Festival Awards (including two ‘Scotsman’ Fringe First Awards), and produced and directed a huge range of straight plays, comedy, music and One Person Shows, many of which introduced artists who are now household names. His freelance theatre directing credits include work for many UK repertory theatres; drama schools; in London’s West End; and in New York.

In radio, where he was a Senior Radio Drama Producer for the BBC, he is one of the UK’s leading audio producers, having directed numerous internationally award-winning productions (two International Sony Radio Awards, two Giles Cooper Awards, the New York Radio Festival Award and the European Union Broadcasting Award).

Andy is also a teacher and lecturer, most recently having been Head of Drama at Bradfield College (Berkshire), and, currently, Senior Lecturer in Drama, Radio & TV at Lincoln University. He has taught and directed at numerous Drama Schools (notably Guildhall) and Universities (including Bristol University Drama Dept), and was a regular tutor at BBC Radio Training.

Andy Jordan Productions Ltd

Andy Jordan Productions was created in summer 2000, initially to present Picasso’s Women. Since then AJP has presented Oxygen by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann (Riverside Studios, London); Murder in Paris by Howard Ginsberg (co-production with Basingstoke Haymarket Theatre); My Matisse by Howard Ginsberg (Edinburgh Festival 2002); An Immaculate Misconception by Carl Djerassi (Bridewell Theatre, London 2002); Kings of the Road by Brian McAvera, Playing For Reward by Chris Pitt and Joe Evans, Last Song of the Nightingale by Peter Quilter, and Ego by Carl Djerassi (Edinburgh Festival 2003). Two of these shows toured after Edinburgh: Kings of the Road (playing in Dublin, Greenwich and Winchester) and Last Song of the Nightingale (in Greenwich).

Three on a Couch by Carl Djerassi, starring Leigh Zimmerman, Rolf Saxon and Michael Praed, directed by Andy Jordan, March 2004, Kings Head Theatre, London; Calculus by Carl Djerassi, starring Nick Wilton, John Kane, Susan Sheridan, Roger May, Lynette Edwards, Michael Fenner and David Gant, New End Theatre, London 2004, directed by Andy Jordan; Swansong written and performed by Conor McDermottroe at the Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh Festival, 2004; Talk About The Passion by Graham Farrow, New End Theatre, London and Arc Theatre, Stockton 2004, starring Daniel Ainsleigh and Phillipa Peak, directed by Darren Tunstall; Phallacy by Carl Djerassi, with Hamish Clark, Karen Archer, Jack Klaff, directed by Andy Jordan (New End Theatre/Kings Head Theatre, London, 2005); Hush by Samantha Wright, with Juliet Cowan and Alex Palmer,directed by Donnacadh O’Briain; Playing Burton by Mark Jenkins, with Brian Mallon, Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh Festival, 2005; Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles by Mark Jenkins, starring Christian McKay, co-produced with Steven Berkoff (Kings Head Theatre, London, 2005/6); Lies Have Been Told by Rod Beacham, starring Philip York, directed by Alan Dossor (New End Theatre, London / Trafalgar Studios, West End of London, with ATG, 2006); Taboos by Carl Djerassi, with Nicola Bryant, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Jane Perry, Kathryn Akin and Jane Perry, directed by Andy Jordan (New End Theatre, London, 2006; 2Graves by Paul Sellar, with Jonathan Moore, directed by Yvonne McDevitt, original music by Michael Nyman (Edinburgh Festival / The Arts Theatre, West End of London, 2006); Worlds End by Paul Sellar, directed by Paul Robinson, with Fiona Button and Merryn Owen (Edinburgh Festival, 2007); Escaping Hamlet by Natalia Capra with Viviana Durante and Robert Reynolds, co-production with Teatro dei Borgia, directed by Gianpiero Borgia (Edinburgh Festival and Castel Dei Mondi Festival, Italy, 2007); Marcia Brown – The Unsung Diva! with Tameka Empson (Trafalgar Studios and Edinburgh Festival, 2007).

AJP have a number of other plays in development, including a revival of Picasso’s Women / GABY, with Jerry Hall, directed by Andy Jordan; Henry and Alice by David Tristram, starring Russ Abbott and Gemma Craven, directed by Andy De La Tour; Rattlesnakes by Graham Farrow, The Lab by Jean Noel Fenwick, in a new version by Jeremy Sams, directed by Christopher Luscombe; What Are Friends For? , starring Louise Jameson, by Leonard Gross, and Marathon by Eduardo Erba, directed by Mick Gordon.

AJP evolved from Bristol Express Theatre Company, founded by Andy Jordan. Bristol Express was well-known for its work with new writers and new writing, for its diverse programme of national touring and commercial co-productions. Originally formed to take shows to the Edinburgh Festival, it won a ‘Scotsman’ Fringe First Award in 1978 for Andy Jordan’s production of Michael Meyer’s Lunatic & Lover, a play and production which was subsequently seen around the world. The company was responsible for discovering numerous now internationally recognised writers, directors, producers and actors.