Copenhagen

Michael Frayn is one of Britain’s most distinguished playwrights and novelists. Born in London in 1933, he began his career as a journalist, writing for The Guardian and The Observer, before turning to fiction and theatre.

His novels include A Very Private Life, Headlong—which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize—and Spies, which won the Whitbread Novel Award. As a playwright, he is celebrated for both his comic and dramatic works, including Noises Off, widely regarded as one of the greatest stage comedies of the twentieth century, and acclaimed plays such as Democracy, Afterlife and Copenhagen.

First produced in London in 1998, Copenhagen has become one of Frayn’s most internationally recognised works, receiving the Tony Award for Best Play and the Olivier Award for Best New Play.

Across a career spanning more than six decades, Frayn has established himself as a writer of exceptional range and intelligence, combining wit, theatrical craft and a profound interest in the complexities of human behaviour.

Robert Chevara is a visionary, radical, international theatre, multi award winning, film and opera director, disrupter, and artist. His production of ‘Carmen’ (Mid Wales Opera) won the Prudential award, best contemporary opera production for Tom Adès’s ‘Powder Her Face’ (Stockholm) and his production of Tennessee Williams’s ‘Vieux Carré’ won Best Revival of a Play Award in the UK from Front Row Dress.    

Robert has directed at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, The Old Vic Theatre, The San Francisco Opera, The Soho Theatre, Royal Northern College of Music, The Opéra Comique, Paris, The Dutch National Opera Academy, Opera New Zealand, The Arcola Theatre, London and the Kirov Theatre, St. Petersburg.

Seminal productions have included work by Puccini, Stravinsky, Tennessee Williams, Verdi, Bizet, Shakespeare, Prokofiev, Philip Ridley, McNally, Massenet and Tom Adès.

In the last couple of years he has directed Argento”s Postcards from Morocco (DNOA Holland), Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (The Glory and The Divine, London) and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (McNally - The Bridge Theatre, Belgium), Rossini’s La Scala Di Seta (Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester) and Philip Ridley’s Vincent River (Soho Theatre transferred to the Trafalgar Theatre, London) and the European premiere of Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg’s Nighttown (DNOA - Amare, Den Haag).

Other recent work includes Tennessee Williams’s ‘The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore” at the Charing Cross Theatre with Linda Marlowe and Sara Kestelman. The World Premier of three early Williams pieces ‘The Chorus Girl Plays’ (Chicago and Tennessee Williams Festival, Provincetown), the world premiere of Lionel Bart’s musical ‘Quasimodo’ (Kings Head Theatre); Caryl Churchill’s ‘Top Girls’ (Hau Theatre, Berlin); JM Barrie’s ‘Mary Rose’; ‘Hamlet’ and Strindberg’s ‘Easter’ (all TheatreSpace, London); Copi’s ‘Eva Peron’ and ‘The Four Twins’, the UK premiere of Argentinian playwright Copi’s two one-act plays. (Battersea Arts Centre).

Robert’s first book ‘West End Girl’ was published by Oberon Books, now Bloomsbury. He has written several opera libretti and his first poetry collection ‘Perfect. Scar’ was published last year by Angelica Books.