Judy Hegarty Lovett – Director and Designer
Judy has a BA in Fine Art from the Crawford College of Art & Design (Cork). She studied Dramatherapy at The University of Hertfordshire (UK) and studied theatre directing and writing with Philippe Gaulier in London. She joined Gare St Lazare Players Chicago in Paris in 1991 as assistant to then Artistic Director Bob Meyer. In 1996 Judy directed Conor Lovett in Molloy by Samuel Beckett in London and so began Gare St Lazare Ireland. She has directed 17 Beckett titles including Waiting for Godot, Rockaby, The Beckett Trilogy – Molloy, Malone Dies & The Unnamable, Lessness, Enough, Texts For Nothing, Worstward Ho, All That Fall, Embers, Cascando, Words and Music, The Old Tune by Robert Pinget (translated by Samuel Beckett), Rough For Radio 1 & 2, First Love, The Calmative and The End and Here All Night, a creation with music and texts by Beckett and original music by composer Paul Clark. Other directing credits include Copenhagen by Michael Frayn (Rubicon Theatre, Ventura, CA 2015), Title and Deed by Will Eno (Signature Theatre NYC 2012), Moby Dick adapted by Judy Hegarty Lovett and Conor Lovett, Swallow by Michael Harding, Tanks a Lot co-written by Judy Hegarty Lovett and Raymond Keane, The Good Thief by Conor McPherson, The Possibilities by Howard Barker and Bouncers by John Godber. Judy’s work has toured to over 150 theatres in over 60 venues in Ireland and over 80 cities around the world. She has won awards for Moby Dick in China, Molloy in Germany, The Good Thief in USA. In 2015 she was a Best Director nominee for the Off-West End Awards for First Love by Samuel Beckett. In May 2016 Gare St Lazare presented The End, First Love, The Beckett Trilogy and Here All Night at Beckett in London, a festival of its work at The Print Room at the Coronet in London. Judy is currently undertaking practice-based research at Reading University UK for a PhD on staging Beckett’s prose.
Mel Mercier – Composer, Sound Designer & Performer
Composer, performer, academic and teacher, Mel is Professor and Chair of Performing Arts at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland. As a traditional percussionist, Mel has collaborated with pianist and composer Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin for nearly 40 years, and throughout the 1980s he performed in Europe and the USA with John Cage and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Mel is the Director of the Irish Gamelan Orchestra and the traditional percussion ensemble PULSUS. Recent composition and sound design projects: CONCERT (CND Paris/Dublin Dance Festival/Kilkenny Arts Festival); Far Away (Cork, Ireland); Le Testament de Marie (Odéon, Paris), King Lear (Old Vic, London); Der Sturm (Salzburg, Austria); Sacri ce at Easter (Cork, Ireland); Shadow of a Gunman (Abbey Theatre/Lyric Belfast); A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (Dublin, London, New York); The Testament of Mary (Broadway – NY Drama Desk Award & Tony Award nomination); The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Epidaurus, Greece/London/New York/Paris) and John Cage’s Roaratorio – An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake (Cologne / Amsterdam / Cork – Cage Centenary). Other composition work: Sétanta (Irish Times Theatre Award nomination – Fibín/Abbey Theatre); School for Scandal (Barbican, London/Holland Festival); The East Pier/The Passing (Abbey Theatre); Man of Aran (Once Off Productions); Mother Courage (National Theatre, London); Happy Days (National Theatre, London / European Tour / Washington / New York); The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Another (National Theatre, London); Julius Caesar (Barbican, London/European Tour); Fewer Emergencies (Royal Court, London); Medea (Abbey Theatre/West End/Broadway/Paris – NY Drama Desk Award nomination); Peace Camp, a coastal installation created by Deborah Warner in collaboration with Fiona Shaw (London 2012 Festival).
Simon Bennison – Lighting Designer
Simon Bennison is from Manchester and trained in Music Composition at the University of Surrey, Lighting and Design at RADA and the Yale School of Drama, in Architecture at University of North London and Music at Salford University. Recent lighting for Ballet & Dance includes two productions of Le Baiser de la Fée (Scottish Ballet & Perm Ballet), Ondine (Bolshoi Ballet), Romeo & Juliet (Royal Ballet of Flanders & Ekaterinburg Ballet). Other pieces include If Play is Play and Three & Four Quarters (Headspace Dance Company), The Illustrated Farewell, Tarantella, Elizabeth, Ballo della Regina, See Even Night Herself is Here and Carousel Pas de Deux and Les Lutins (Royal Ballet). Fourteen works for Cathy Marston, (Royal Ballet/Bern Ballet), Sea of Troubles (English National Ballet). Previous productions with Viacheslav Samodurov include Non Linear Interactions and Tric-Trac (Royal Ballet), and In a Minor Key (Mikhailovsky Ballet). As an Associate to Lucy Carter he co-designed Metamorphosis: Titian and Ravengirl (Royal Ballet). He has revived Wayne McGregor’s repertoire for Canadian National Ballet, Darmstadt State Ballet, Polish National Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet, Boston Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders and the Australian Ballet.
Recent lighting for Theatre includes a Samuel Beckett repertoire for Gare St Lazare of Here all Night, The Trilogy, The End, First Love and recreating the artwork Hello Sam by Brian O’Doherty. For the Print Room at the Coronet he has lit Title & Deed, The Dead Dogs and Ivy & Joan. Recent lighting for Opera includes, Swanhunter (Opera North), Rita and The Bear (Royal Opera). Scenes from an Execution (Dundee Repertory Theatre) and In a Minor Key, were both nominated for lighting design awards in Scotland and Russia, and Before the Tempest … After the Storm, (Cathy Marston), and the Scottish Ballet Le Baiser de la Fée were filmed and broadcast for BBC3.
Conor Lovett – Performer
Conor Lovett is joint artistic director of Gare St Lazare Ireland with director Judy Hegarty Lovett. He trained at École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. His Beckett work with Gare St Lazare has gained him a reputation as one of the world’s foremost Beckett interpreters, having performed 19 Beckett roles in 24 Beckett productions internationally, in over 83 cities in 25 countries around the world. Highlights include the New York premiere of the Beckett trilogy at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, Vladimir in Gare St Lazare’s production of Waiting for Godot at the Gaiety Theatre (Dublin Theatre Festival), the company’s Beckett in London Festival 2016 and creating the role of Man in Title and Deed by Will Eno – GSL’s off- Broadway coproduction with Signature Theater Company. Non-Beckett work includes Conor McPherson’s The Good Thief for Gare St. Lazare (2006), Lucy Caldwell’s Leaves directed by Garry Hynes with the Druid Theatre Company (2007), and Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre’s production of The Bull at the Dublin Theatre Festival (2005). Other theater roles include Ferdinand in The Duchess of Malfi, Joey in The Homecoming, Army in Requiem for a Heavyweight, Les in Bouncers, The Torturer in The Possibilities, Gus in The Dumb Waiter, Orpheus in Orpheus, and Ed in Entertaining Mr. Sloane. TV appearances include Versailles, Endeavour, Acceptable Risk, Charlie, Father Ted, On The Hemline and Fallout. His film credits include Music, War and Love, Small Engine Repair, Intermission, Moll Flanders, L’Entente Cordiale, and The Kings of Cork City.
Stephen Dillane – Performer
Stephen Dillane has worked in London and New York theatres in plays by Beckett, Ibsen, Chekhov, O’Neill, Shakespeare, Brian Friel, George Farquhar, Tom Stoppard, April de Angelis, Caryl Churchill, Wallace Shawn, David Rabe and Tony Kushner. He worked with Travis Preston in Los Angeles and at the Sundance Theater Lab to develop a one-man production of Macbeth with an improvised jazz trio which played in LA, London, Sydney and Adelaide. And he collaborated with Katie Mitchell to perform TS Eliot’s Four Quartets in London and the Lincoln Center in New York. He also worked with Katie and with tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Andrew West on an English language version of Schubert’s Winterreise, with some of Beckett’s poems interspersed between Lieder (London and NY). He co-directed and performed a ‘live radio’ version of Beckett’s The Old Tune with Stephen Warbeck for the Forest Row Festival in Sussex. More recently he began a collaboration with artist Tacita Dean at the Sydney Biennale which resulted in live performances and a 35mm film – Event for a Stage. This spring a
second film, Antigone, will be shown at the Royal Academy as part of a major exhibition of Tacita’s landscapes. He began working on and off with Gare St Lazare about six months ago when invited to join this ongoing development of How It Is (Part One). Stephen Dillane has recorded Beckett’s First Love for radio as well as Sebald’s Apocalyptic Vision and Tosca’s Kiss among others. He has worked in TV productions including The Tunnel, The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall, Kings in Grass Castles (for Australian TV), Game of Thrones, and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd. His film credits include: Welcome to Sarajevo, Darkest Hour, The Hours, Spygame, The Darkest Light, 44” Chest and Savage Grace. He has recently completed shooting Outlaw King with David Mackenzie. He has won awards for both TV and theatre work, most recently the London Critics Circle best actor prize for Friel’s Faith Healer at the Donmar Warehouse.