Pilot Theatre
Encyclopedia
Pilot Theatre is an Arts Council England
funded Theatre Company based in York
, England
. It was founded in 1981 by students from Bretton Hall College in Wakefield
. The company was based in Wakefield and Castleford
before moving to York in 2001.
The company is now based at York Theatre Royal
. It tours work in the UK and internationally.
The Artistic Director is Marcus Romer
who has written and directed work for the company since 1995, working with teams that include composer Sandy Nuttgens
and designer Ali Allen and Lighting Designer James Farncombe and AV design by Arnim Friess and more recently with KMA
They produced the IIFA Bollywood Oscar Awards opening sequence for stage and TV in 2007 at Sheffield Arena. This was in partnership with their new collaborators Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler from KMA who are also based in York.
They are part of the EU Culture 2000
funded programme called Magic-Net along with twelve other countries across Europe. The company has won three Manchester Evening News
awards for Lord of the Flies
, by William Golding
, adapted by Nigel Williams
, and Beautiful Thing
, by Jonathan Harvey
. Other work includes Sing yer heart out for the lads, by Roy Williams
, Road
by Jim Cartwright
, Bloodtide
by Melvin Burgess
, The Beauty Queen of Leenane
by Martin McDonagh
, Kiss of the Spider Woman
by Manuel Puig
, Mirad a Boy from Bosnia by Ad de Bont, Rumble Fish
by S.E Hinton, Look Back In Anger
by John Osborne
, The Elephant Man
by Bernard Pomerance
, Fungus the Bogeyman
by Raymond Briggs
, The Twits
by Roald Dahl
and Looking for JJ
by Anne Cassidy.
They won the Manchester Evening News Award for best production for their tour of Lord of the Flies in 2001. A tour of this production is planned for 2008.
Pilot Theatre have embraced new technologies both on and off stage. They built their production of Looking for JJ on MySpace
and have the first UK Theatre hub in Second Life
.
Core team: Marcus Romer
, Artistic Director/Chief Executive, Amanda J Smith, Administrative Producer, Sarah Seddon, Admnistrator, Katie Fathers, Projects Co-ordinator, Tracy Cochrane, Marketing Consultant, Charles Moore, Finance Director, Hannah Priddle, Associate Artist - Education, Helen Cadbury, Education Associate, Richard Hurford, writer in residence, James Molyneux, Production Manager, Stuart Farnell, Technical Manager, Francesca Finney, Company Manager
Patrons: Roy Williams
, Ayub Khan Din, Anne Cassidy, Jonathan Harvey
, Melvin Burgess
, Dolly Dhingra, Philip Ridley
, Stan Barstow
The Board of Directors: Dave Moutrey (Chair), Kully Thiarai, Saira Mughal, Geoff Alvy, Stephen Mason, Ann Wishart, Tim Evison, Jim Walkden, Christina Wright, Peter Whelan, Sam Sherratt
Arts Council England
Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...
funded Theatre Company based in York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It was founded in 1981 by students from Bretton Hall College in Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
. The company was based in Wakefield and Castleford
Castleford
Castleford is the largest of the "five towns" district in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England. It is near Pontefract, and has a population of 37,525 according to the 2001 Census, but has seen a rise in recent years and is now around 45-50,000. To the north...
before moving to York in 2001.
The company is now based at York Theatre Royal
York Theatre Royal
The York Theatre Royal is a theatre in St. Leonard's Place, York, England, which dates back to 1744. The theatre currently seats 847 people. This reduced capacity takes into account removal of the mixing position seats and the stage side boxes which are normally not sold...
. It tours work in the UK and internationally.
The Artistic Director is Marcus Romer
Marcus Romer
Marcus Romer is the Artistic Director of Pilot TheatreHe works as a director, writer and actor.He is a published playwright work includes Rumble Fish, , Out of Their Heads, Taken without Consent, , Looking for JJ, Fungus the Bogeyman and BloodtideAs an actor he has...
who has written and directed work for the company since 1995, working with teams that include composer Sandy Nuttgens
Sandy Nuttgens
Alexander "Sandy" Nuttgens is a British composer and a member of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.He is principally known for scoring television programmes mainly in the realm of children's TV and documentaries...
and designer Ali Allen and Lighting Designer James Farncombe and AV design by Arnim Friess and more recently with KMA
They produced the IIFA Bollywood Oscar Awards opening sequence for stage and TV in 2007 at Sheffield Arena. This was in partnership with their new collaborators Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler from KMA who are also based in York.
They are part of the EU Culture 2000
Culture 2000
Culture 2000 was a 7-year European Union programme, which had among its key objectives to preserve and enhance Europe's cultural heritage. Its duration was between 2000 and 2006, and it had a budget of €236.5 million....
funded programme called Magic-Net along with twelve other countries across Europe. The company has won three Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...
awards for Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results...
, by William Golding
William Golding
Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies...
, adapted by Nigel Williams
Nigel Williams (author)
Nigel Williams is an English novelist, screenwriter and playwright.-Biography:He was educated at Highgate School and Oriel College, Oxford, is married with three sons and lives in Putney, south-west London...
, and Beautiful Thing
Beautiful Thing
Originally Beautiful Thing is a play written by Jonathan Harvey and first performed in 1993. A screen adaptation of the play was released in 1996 by Channel 4 Films, with a revised screenplay also by Harvey. Initially, the film was only intended for television broadcast but it was so well-received...
, by Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey (playwright)
Jonathan Harvey is a British playwright whose work has earned multiple awards. He is also a former secondary school English teacher.-Life and works:...
. Other work includes Sing yer heart out for the lads, by Roy Williams
Roy Williams (playwright)
Roy Samuel Williams, OBE is an award-winning English playwright. Williams has many awards including the George Devine Award for Lift Off, the 2001 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for his play Clubland, the 2002 BAFTA Award for Best Schools Drama for Offside and 2004 South Bank...
, Road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
by Jim Cartwright
Jim Cartwright
Jim Cartwright is an English dramatist, born at Farnworth, Lancashire, England. Cartwright's first play, Road, won a number of awards before being adapted for TV and broadcast by the BBC....
, Bloodtide
Bloodtide
Bloodtide is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Plot:...
by Melvin Burgess
Melvin Burgess
Melvin Burgess is a British author of children's fiction. His first book, The Cry of the Wolf, was published in 1990. He gained a certain amount of notoriety in 1996 with the publication of Junk, which was published in the shadow of the film of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, and dealt with the...
, The Beauty Queen of Leenane
The Beauty Queen of Leenane
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a 1996 black comedy by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh which was premiered by the Druid Theatre Company in Galway, Ireland...
by Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh is an Irish-British playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Although he has lived in London his entire life, he is considered one of the most important living Irish playwrights.-Life:...
, Kiss of the Spider Woman
Kiss of the Spider Woman (play)
The 1983 stage play Kiss of the Spider Woman is an adaptation of Manuel Puig's same title novel by the author himself.Novelist, screenwriter and playwright Manuel Puig wrote two plays while living in exile...
by Manuel Puig
Manuel Puig
Manuel Puig was an Argentine author...
, Mirad a Boy from Bosnia by Ad de Bont, Rumble Fish
Rumble Fish
Rumble Fish is a 1983 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on the novel Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton, who also co-wrote the screenplay....
by S.E Hinton, Look Back In Anger
Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger is a John Osborne play—made into films in 1959, 1980, and 1989 -- about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...
by John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
, The Elephant Man
The Elephant Man (play)
The Elephant Man is a 1977 play by Bernard Pomerance. The production's Broadway debut in 1979 was produced by Richmond Crinkley and Nelle Nugent, and directed by Jack Hofsiss...
by Bernard Pomerance
Bernard Pomerance
Bernard Pomerance is an American playwright and poet whose best known work is the play The Elephant Man. Pomerance was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. He studied at the University of Chicago and moved to London in 1968....
, Fungus the Bogeyman
Fungus the Bogeyman
Fungus the Bogeyman is a children's graphic novel by British artist Raymond Briggs. It follows one day in the life of the titular character, a working class Bogeyman with the mundane job of scaring human beings.-Plot:...
by Raymond Briggs
Raymond Briggs
Raymond Redvers Briggs is an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist, and author who has achieved critical and popular success among adults and children...
, The Twits
The Twits
The Twits is a humorous children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was written in 1979, and first published in 1980....
by Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...
and Looking for JJ
Looking for JJ
Looking for JJ is a novel by Anne Cassidy, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Book Award and winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize in 2004.-Plot introduction:...
by Anne Cassidy.
They won the Manchester Evening News Award for best production for their tour of Lord of the Flies in 2001. A tour of this production is planned for 2008.
Pilot Theatre have embraced new technologies both on and off stage. They built their production of Looking for JJ on MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and have the first UK Theatre hub in Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
.
Core team: Marcus Romer
Marcus Romer
Marcus Romer is the Artistic Director of Pilot TheatreHe works as a director, writer and actor.He is a published playwright work includes Rumble Fish, , Out of Their Heads, Taken without Consent, , Looking for JJ, Fungus the Bogeyman and BloodtideAs an actor he has...
, Artistic Director/Chief Executive, Amanda J Smith, Administrative Producer, Sarah Seddon, Admnistrator, Katie Fathers, Projects Co-ordinator, Tracy Cochrane, Marketing Consultant, Charles Moore, Finance Director, Hannah Priddle, Associate Artist - Education, Helen Cadbury, Education Associate, Richard Hurford, writer in residence, James Molyneux, Production Manager, Stuart Farnell, Technical Manager, Francesca Finney, Company Manager
Patrons: Roy Williams
Roy Williams (playwright)
Roy Samuel Williams, OBE is an award-winning English playwright. Williams has many awards including the George Devine Award for Lift Off, the 2001 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for his play Clubland, the 2002 BAFTA Award for Best Schools Drama for Offside and 2004 South Bank...
, Ayub Khan Din, Anne Cassidy, Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey (playwright)
Jonathan Harvey is a British playwright whose work has earned multiple awards. He is also a former secondary school English teacher.-Life and works:...
, Melvin Burgess
Melvin Burgess
Melvin Burgess is a British author of children's fiction. His first book, The Cry of the Wolf, was published in 1990. He gained a certain amount of notoriety in 1996 with the publication of Junk, which was published in the shadow of the film of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, and dealt with the...
, Dolly Dhingra, Philip Ridley
Philip Ridley
Philip Ridley is a British artist working with various media.- Biography :Ridley was born in Bethnal Green, in the East End of London, where he still lives and works. He studied painting at St. Martin’s School of Art and his work has been exhibited throughout Europe and Japan...
, Stan Barstow
Stan Barstow
Stanley "Stan" Barstow FRSL was an English novelist.-Biography:Barstow was born in Horbury, near Wakefield, Yorkshire. His father was a coal miner and he attended Ossett Grammar School, he then worked as a draftsman and salesman for an engineering firm...
The Board of Directors: Dave Moutrey (Chair), Kully Thiarai, Saira Mughal, Geoff Alvy, Stephen Mason, Ann Wishart, Tim Evison, Jim Walkden, Christina Wright, Peter Whelan, Sam Sherratt