Compere
Alan Dedicoat
Alan Dedicoat has the voice millions in the UK certainly recognise and many envy. His is ‘The Voice of the Balls’, providing instant commentary for the National Lottery Draw. He is also the voice of the hugely successful Strictly Come Dancing.
Alan originally trained to be a lawyer but was seduced by hospital radio into a career in broadcasting. Several years on local stations were followed by a move to London and Radio 2, eventually becoming the national network’s Chief Announcer and and for many years joined in the banter with Terry Wogan on his Radio 2 breakfast show.
Across the Atlantic, he’s the British voice on ‘Dancing with the Stars’. And most recently he has hosted ‘Mellow Magic Breakfast’ for Bauer’s Magic Radio.
Actors
Mollie Fyfe-Taylor
Mollie toured with GB Theatre Company in their productions of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘As You Like It’. TV work includes Emmerdale, CBBC and Nurses Who Kill. Mollie is currently working on her own projects and is looking forward to launching Second Best Bed Theatre Company at the end of the year with a production of ‘The Tempest’.
Sarah Gordon
Sarah’s Shakespearean roles have included Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Fred Theatre, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Regan in King Lear, Biondello in The Taming of the Shrew and the Earl of Cambridge in Henry V. Other recent performances include Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables (Redhead Reach), Miss Prism in The Importance of being Earnest (Fred Theatre) and Miss Nesbitt in Queens of Victorian Horror (Don’t Go Into the Cellar).
Sarah is also an experienced puppeteer, roleplayer and improviser, and leads educational drama workshops for children.
Phil Hemming
Phil trained at Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and since graduating has appeared in a variety of guises. These include: Macbeth, Leontes (Winter’s Tale), Angelo (Measure for Measure), Perks (The Railway Children), Pistol (Merry Wives of Windsor), Clarence (Richard III), Elzevir Block (Moonfleet), Graham (A Chip in the Sugar), Alderman Fitzwarren (Dick Whittington), Rev Davey (Jamaica Inn), Vicomte de Valmont (Les Liaisons Dangereux), Algernon Moncrieff (The Importance of Being Earnest) and many others.
He recently appeared as Wallace Greenslade, Valentine Dyall and Ray Ellington in Fred Theatre’s production of The Goon Show and has just completed a run of The Ghost Train, appearing as Dr Stirling. On screen he generally plays villains, including Fred West no less, but has more recently been filming as village vicar, Rev Moore, for TV pilot The Bagley Boys.
James Parsons
James has appeared in a wide range of stage and film productions. His recent credits include:
STAGE: Duncan/Macduff – Macbeth, Mr Gould/The Doctor – Friend or Foe? (Fred Theatre), Henry J Lawson – Daimler Powerhouse (Imagineer), Alain – God Of Carnage (Melting Pot Theatre)
FILM: Ron – Benny Loves You (forthcoming from Darkline), Stellman – Parallel Lines (Future Imperfect Pictures) Harland – Partners In Crime (Mirrored Vision Productions)
RADIO: Brint – I Davros, The Interviewer – Doctor Who; Thicker Than Water (BBC/Big Finish).
Peter M Smith
Peter is a Midlands based actor who has been working regularly since 2006. He has performed with numerous companies including: Fred Theatre, Red Trouser, Friction Theatre, Red River Theatre, MAC Birmingham, FCNK Ltd and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Alongside acting work, Peter is also a drama education assistant at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and he regularly delivers Stanislavsky acting workshops to undergraduate students at CAPA in London.
Recently, he appeared in the short film, ‘In the Long Run’, which was nominated for a Jerusalem award by BAFTA. This year he has performed in ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Not Alice’, a play focussing on the life and work of Lewis Carol. He is soon to start work on a production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.
Claire Sullivan
Claire trained at the Oxford School of Drama. Since graduating in 2014, she has performed across the UK in a variety of modern and classical productions. Having been involved in last year’s birthday celebrations, she is pleased to be back in Stratford-upon-Avon this year in celebrating the life of William Shakespeare at The Bard’s Night.
Commedia dell’Arte
Stefano Guizzi
actor and teacher
Raised in the US, France and Italy, Stefano graduated in 1990 from Giorgio Strehler’s Scuola di Teatro, part of Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, where his teachers were, among others, Giorgio Strehler and Ferruccio Soleri, and where he attended workshops with Carolyn Carlson, Ian McKellen and Cicely Berry. He plays the lead in A Walk In Shakespeare’s Garden by Maggie Rose, directed by Donatella Massimilla, a promenade show for parks and gardens.
Donatella Massimilla
artistic director of CETEC and San Vittore Globe Theatre
Donatella began her career as an actor with Franco Molè, after which she studied at Rome’s Sapienza University with Jerzy Grotowski. She specialized in Commedia dell’Arte at Venice’s celebrated Avogaria Academy. In 1999 she founded CETEC, Centro Europeo Teatro e Carcere (European Centre for Theatre and Prisons). It is twenty years since she first stepped inside Milan’s San Vittore prison, and in the meantime she has continued to visit prisons all over Europe.
Maggie Rose
writer and teacher
Maggie teaches British Theatre Performance Studies at Milan State University. A dramatist and translator, she spends part of the year in the UK for her writing and research. She has led theatre seminars and writing workshops in the UK and Italy. Her stage and radio plays reflect her interest in issues of migration and multiculturalism as well as Shakespeare. She has recently penned the site-specific plays, Shakespeare: Secret Agent, A Walk in Shakespeare’s Garden, Harlequin and Shakespeare Ltd, for botanical gardens, parks and villas, reflecting her current interest in food and the environment in Shakespeare’s work.
Musicians
Bukechi
Bukechi is acoustic musical duo, Sammi & Skidders. Based in Warwickshire in the middle of England, Bukechi write and perform their own music with their debut album, ‘Welcome to Suburbia’ now available on iTunes. Both Sammi & Skidders have a broad overlap of musical tastes and their music is a unique fusion of acoustic, fold, pop, blues, jazz etc – listen to their music and see what you think … (www.bukechi.co.uk)
Bukechi, pronounced ‘boo-ker-chee’, is Mandarin Chinese, meaning “You’re welcome”. And you are welcome to visit their website to browse and read their RSS fed Latest News sections. You can also join them on Facebook, Myspace etc.
Diabolus in Musica
Diabolus in Musica concert performances are legendary. They don’t do concerts the way other people do concerts. They maintain a large and eclectic repertoire of 16th and early 17th century music, carefully selected for its variety and instant appeal to uninitiated audiences. This gives Diabolus in Musica tremendous flexibility. They have been known to plan a programme for a specific venue, and alter it on the spot according to audience response. The troupe include jokes, historical anecdotes, and participation, and can fend off hecklers. In Elizabethan! Above all, Diabolus make early music fun. Promoters in some small rural venues have told them that their concert was still talked about years later. An ideal choice for the first concert in a series was one of the reasons the band was included in the programme for the first Bard’s Night. You can learn more about the band at www.diabolus.org.
