Pinocchio

As well as choreographing for and performing as a member of The Royal Ballet for over 25 years, Will Tuckett is a multi-award winning, internationally renowned director and choreographer, working in Europe, the USA, Canada, Japan and China. He has directed and choreographed in theatre, opera, musical theatre and film, including work for The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, The National Ballet of Japan, National Ballet of China, Texas Ballet Theatre, The Sarasota Ballet, ABT Studio Company, The Royal Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Garsington Opera, Grange Park Opera, Bregenz Festspiele, Sadlers Wells Theatre, Barbican Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe, Almeida Theatre, Parco Theatre, New National Theatre Tokyo, Sage Gateshead, Latitude Festival, Glastonbury Festival, Tate Modern, The National Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, BBC, Channel 4, Sky Arts, Working Title and 87North. He also acts as an arts consultant and was the first ROH2 Creative Associate for the Royal Opera House and was the 2008 Clore Dance Fellow. His Olivier Award-winning Royal Opera House production of The Wind in the Willows was the first to ever transfer into the West End and he has been nominated for three Critics’ Circle Awards, two Evening Standard and Southbank Awards.

Award-winning composer Paul Englishby has produced critically acclaimed scores for film, theatre, television, dance and the concert hall. He studied Composition at Goldsmiths College and The Royal Academy of Music and is a recipient of an Emmy Award, as well as BAFTA, Ivor Novello and Tony Award Nominations. Paul’s theatre credits include over 20 productions for Royal Shakespeare Company, The Land of The Living, Jack Absolute Flies Again, The Visit, Peer Gynt, A Taste of Honey and Emil and the Detectives (National Theatre), The Inheritance (Tony and Olivier nominated original score), Skylight and The Audience (West End, Broadway), The Government Inspector and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre), Pleasures Progress and The Thief of Baghdad (Royal Opera House). His television credits include Lynley, Now and Then, Lang Lang Plays Disney, Luther (BAFTA nominated original score), The Musketeers and The Witness for the Prosecution (Ivor Novello Award nominated original score). Paul’s film credits include Together, Page Eight (Emmy Award winner), An Education, A Royal Night Out, Sunshine on Leith, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and Confetti.

Alasdair Middleton was born in Yorkshire and trained at London’s Drama Centre. His work as a librettist includes Pleasure’s Progress (Royal Opera House), Who Is This That Comes (Opera North) and The Crane Maiden (Kanagawa Arts Theatre) with composer Paul Englishby. His work with composer Jonathan Dove includes Who Wrote the Book of Love? and Seasons and Charms (Aldeburgh Festival), A Brief History of Creation (Hallé Orchestra), The Monster in the Maze (Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Aix-en-Provence Festival), Diana and Actaeon (The Royal Ballet), The Walk From The Garden (Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival), Life Is A Dream (Birmingham Opera Company), Mansfield Park (Heritage Opera), Swanhunter (Opera North), The Enchanted Pig (The Young Vic, Royal Opera House), The Adventures of Pinocchio (Opera North) and the cantata On Spital Fields (Spitalfields Music Festival, Winner of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award).

Born in Northern Ireland, Colin Richmond trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Colin’s theatre credits include Legally Blonde (Set Design, UK Tour), The High Life – The Musical (National Theatre of Scotland), Wendy & Peter Pan (Barbican, Bunkamura, Royal Shakespeare Company, Leeds Playhouse), 13 Going On 30 – The Musical (Set, Manchester Opera House), Noughts and Crosses, La Cage aux Folles and 101 Dalmatians (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Wizard of Oz (Set, Curve Theatre, The London Palladium, UK Tour), Red Shoes, The Magician’s Elephant, Titus Andronicus and Breakfast with Mugabe (West End, Royal Shakespeare Company), Oliver! (Leeds Playhouse), The Little Big Things (Soho Place), The Royal Hunt of the Sun (Parco Theatre), The Witches of Eastwick (West End), Annie (West End, South Africa, Toronto and UK Tour), Grease (West End, UK Tour) and Sunset Boulevard (UK Tour). His ballet and opera credits include The Nutcracker and Macbeth (The National Ballet of Japan), Merlin (Northern Ballet), Carmen, The Magic Flute and Kiss Me Kate (Opera North) and Sweeney Todd (Welsh National Opera, La Monnaie and The Royal Danish Opera).

Oliver Fenwick’s theatre credits include Death on the Nile (UK Tour), Bacchae, Alterations, Dear Octopus, The Father and the Assassin, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Kerry Jackson, Tartuffe – the Imposter, The Great Wave, Ugly Lies the Bone, The Motherf*cker with the Hat, Happy Now? and The Holy Rosenbergs (National Theatre), The School for Scandal, The Magician’s Elephant, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, The Jew of Malta, Wendy & Peter Pan, The Winter’s Tale, The Taming of the Shrew and Julius Caesar (Royal Shakespeare Company), Clyde’s, Sweat, Trouble in Butetown, One Night in Miami, The Vote and Berenice (Donmar Warehouse), Ulster American (Riverside Studios), My City and Ruined (Almeida Theatre), The Purists, The Invisible Hand, Holy Sh!t, White Teeth and Red Velvet (St. Ann’s Warehouse), Paper Dolls and Handbagged (Kiln Theatre), Oleanna, Sweat, King Lear, Di and Viv and Rose, The Importance of Being Earnest, Bakersfield Mist, Kean, The Madness of George III and Ghosts (West End).

Douglas O’Connell trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and has worked in design in regional theatre throughout New York, Chicago and London. His theatre and opera credits include The Nutcracker (The National Ballet of Japan), Wizard of Oz (Curve Theatre, The London Palladium, UK Tour), Giovanna D’Arco (Malmö Opera), Rock Me Amadeus (Ronacher Theatre), Aspects of Love (West End), 1923: Children of Republic (Piu Entertainment), Identical  (Nottingham Playhouse), We Will Rock You (International Tour), Grease (Dominion Theatre), All’s Well That Ends Well and The Magician’s Elephant (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Royal Hunt of The Sun (Parco Theatre), The Lost Thing (Royal Opera House), The Witches Of Eastwick (West End), The Magic Flute (Opera North), Hogarth’s Progress: The Taste Of The Town and Hogarth’s Progress: The Art Of Success (Rose Theatre), An Officer and a Gentleman (Curve Theatre, Leicester and UK Tour), Sunset Boulevard (Curve Theatre, Leicester, UK Tour) and A Tale Of Two Cities (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre).

Lindsay Fischer has staged ballets around the world by a variety of choreographers, including George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, Rudi van Dantzig, Toer van Schayk and John Neumeier. His background as a Principal Dancer with Dutch National Ballet and later New York City Ballet, exposed him to repertoire and choreographers that ranged from strict academic classicism to highly experimental works fusing dance, music and theatre. After supervising the original production of Pinocchio under Will Tuckett’s direction at The National Ballet of Canada, Lindsay restaged the ballet for Texas Ballet Theater in 2019. This revival for the National Ballet is a welcome opportunity to revisit both the people from the original cast and the ideas they brought to life about what it means to be included, to be inclusive and to be real.

AJ Bridel is a Toronto-based performer known for her theatre work, including Lauren in Kinky Boots (Mirvish, Dora Award Nominee and Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress), Sherrie Christian in Rock of Ages (Elgin Theatre, Dora Award Nominee), Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown Festival), Sophie Sheridan in Mamma Mia!, Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz and Buttons in Cinderella: The Panto (Drayton Entertainment). Other credits include several Ross Petty Pantomimes including Sleeping Beauty and Lil’ Red Robin Hood and voice work in Blues Clues, Caillou and My Little Pony (Pipp Petals).

Andrew Broderick is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. His theatre credits include Octet and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (Crow’s Theatre), Primary Trust (Arts Club Theatre Company), Choir Boy (Canadian Stage, Arts Club Theatre Company), The Color Purple (Neptune Theatre, The Citadel Theatre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre), The Last Timbit (Marquis Entertainment), Hadestown (The Citadel Theatre), The Amen Corner, Sweeney Todd, Peter and the Starcatcher and Everybody (Shaw Festival Theatre), You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and The Pirates of Penzance (The Stratford Festival), Hairspray (Charlottetown Festival, Drayton Entertainment, Rainbow Stage) and Dreamgirls (The Grand Theatre).

Maya Doherty is a Toronto-based triple threat performer who trained at Randolph College for the Performing Arts and The S.P.A.C.E. Her recent theatre credits include Jesus Christ Superstar (Drayton Entertainment), Murder at the Snowball Ball, and Aladdin: A Traditional British Panto (Globus Theatre).

Trevor Patt is a graduate of George Brown College’s Dance Performance Program and Sheridan College’s Music Theatre Program. Known for his versatility, he has performed at nearly every Canadian professional theatre from coast to coast as an actor, musician, dancer and singer. He spent six seasons at The Stratford Festival where highlights included starring in Spamalot, The Rocky Horror Show and the North American premiere of Shakespeare in Love. Most recently, Trevor finished a yearlong run of playing Pumbaa in the Mirvish production of Disney’s The Lion King and starring as Shrek in Shrek The Musical at Young People’s Theatre.

Marcia Adolphe is a Toronto-based American Sign Language-English interpreter with 28 years of experience. She is one of the few Canadian interpreters to have attended the Interpreting for the Theatre program at The Juilliard School.

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Jeff Morris joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1995. Born in Toronto, he studied technical theatre production and administration at Ryerson’s Theatre School (now Toronto Metropolitan University). From 1990 to 1995, he was Production Stage Manager for Toronto Dance Theatre, including the company’s debuts in Berlin, Warsaw, Tokyo and at the Joyce Theater. He was Production Stage Manager for Dancers for Life (1991 – 1997), Stage Manager for Theatre Passe-Muraille (Never Swim Alone) and for the Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists. Since joining the National Ballet, Jeff has stage-managed a wide range of the company’s unique classical and contemporary repertoire, including the world premieres of James Kudelka’s The Four Seasons, Cinderella and An Italian Straw Hat, Crystal Pite’s Emergence and Angels’ Atlas and Guillaume Côté’s Le Petit Prince and Frame by Frame (with Robert Lepage). Company premieres include John Neumeier’s The Seagull, A Streetcar Named Desire, Nijinsky and Anna Karenina and Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale. He is a board member and instructor for SMArts and Festival CoDirector for dance:made in Canada/fait au Canada.

Alex Wommack (she/her) is from Waco, Texas and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Her passion for ballet led her to work with Alabama Ballet for two seasons while completing her undergraduate degree. Following graduation, she moved to Seattle and joined the Stage Management team at Seattle Opera, where highlights included Porgy and Bess, The Barber of Seville and Flight. From 2017 to 2019, she worked with Pacific Northwest Ballet as an Assistant Stage Manager for George Balanchine's The Nutcracker and joined the company as Stage Manager in 2020. She is a member of CAEA and AGMA, having served two terms for the latter as the Northwest-area staging staff representative on the National Board of Governors. Outside of her professional work, Alex is actively involved with Books to Prisoners, an organization that fosters a love of reading and helps to break the cycle of recidivism in American prisons. This is her second season with The National Ballet of Canada.

Past productions for The National Ballet of Canada include Emergence, IN COLOUR, DEXTRIS, A Delicate Battle, Monument, C.V, Jewels, Petrouchka, Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake. Lani has worked as a stage manager for companies across Canada, including Shaw Festival, Mirvish Productions, The Charlottetown Festival, Tarragon Theatre, Canadian Stage, The Grand Theatre, Théâtre Catapulte, Globe Theatre, Western Canada Theatre, Blyth Festival Theatre, Fall for Dance North, FLUX Dance Festival, Dasein Dance Theatre and CanAsian Dance.

Productions with The National Ballet of Canada include The Winter’s Tale, Don Quixote, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, UtopiVerse, Jewels, The Nutcracker, Emma Bovary, Passion, MADDADDAM and Swan Lake. Troy Taylor has also worked as a Stage Manager for Fall for Dance North, Yonge Street Theatricals, Soulpepper Theatre, Young People’s Theatre, Canadian Stage, The Shaw Festival, Tarragon Theatre, Nightwood Theatre, Ross Petty Productions and Mirvish Productions.