MAX ROBERTS (Director) is Artistic Director and founding member of Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne. The productions he has directed for the company include The Long Line, Yesterday’s Children, Long Shadows, The Filleting Machine and Seafarers by Tom Hadaway; A Nightingale Sang, Operation Elvis and Bandits by CP Taylor; Close the Coalhouse Door, Going Home, Shooting the Legend, Tales from the Backyard, and Charlie’s Trousers by Alan Plater; In Blackberry Time by Alan Plater and Michael Chaplin from the stories of Sid Chaplin; Come Snow Come Blow by Leonard Barras; Northern Glory and Kidder’s Luck by Phil Woods; Your Home In The West by Rod Wooden; The Ghost of T Dan Smith and The Great Fire of Newcastle by Peter Flannery; He Swoops To Bonk Her by Shaun Prendergast; The Women Who Painted Ships and Attachments by Julia Darling; Laughter When We’re Dead and Keepers of the Flame (in a co-production with the RSC) by Sean O’Brien; Buffalo Girls and Eggs and Basket Cases by Karin Young; Bones and Noir by Peter Straughan; Lush Life by Paul Sirett; Cooking with Elvis (Olivier Award nominee for Best Comedy), NE1 and Wittgenstein on Tyne by Lee Hall. Earlier this year, Max Roberts directed the German-language premiere of The Pitmen Painters in Vienna at The Volkstheater, and most recently a verbatim drama about the plight of Newcastle United entitled You Couldn’t Make It Up by Michael Chaplin and Tom Chaplin which was so successful that it was reworked and revived as ‘you Really Couldn’t Make it Up’ , ‘Jump’ by Lisa McGee and most recently ‘A Northern Odyssey’ by Shelagh Stephenson.

LEE HALL (Playwright) was born in 1966 in Newcastle upon Tyne and was educated at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Screenwriting credits include: Billy Elliot (Working Title/ Tiger Aspect) which received BIFA Award for Best Screenplay; two BAFTA nominations for Best Newcomer and Best Screenplay; and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Television credits include: Wind in the Willows (BBC), Spoonface Steinberg (BBC2), The Student Prince (BBC1). His work in theatre includes: Billy Elliot The Musical (Victoria Palace Theatre, Broadway and Sydney), with music by Elton John, which received the 2005 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical and nine Olivier Award nominations, winning five including Best New Musical. Other theatre includes Spoonface Steinberg at the Ambassadors, Cooking With Elvis which had its premiere at Live Theatre then toured to Edinburgh, transferred to the West End, toured nationally and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Comedy. His adaptations for the stage include: The Barber of Seville (Bristol Old Vic), The Good Hope (National), Pinocchio (Lyric Hammersmith), Mother Courage (Shared Experience), Servant to Two Masters (RSC/ Young Vic), Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (Almeida/Right Size) and Leonce and Lena (Gate Theatre). Radio includes: Matti’s Story/Child of the Rain, Gristle, Spoonface Steinberg, The Sorrows of Sandra Saint, The Love Letters of Ragie Patel, Blood Sugar, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (six part adaptation), and I Love You, Jimmy Spud (winner of a Sony Award: Best Writing on Radio). Lee Hall is currently working on a play for the National Theatre; a new musical with Elton John; The Wall – the Musical with Roger Waters; and a film about the director Douglas Sirk for Paramount.

WILLIAM FEAVER Former art critic for the (London) Observer, writer, curator, broadcaster, painter, author of 'Pitmen Painters', from which The Pitmen Painters derives, and most recently, books on Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud, whose retrospective he curated in 2002-3. He is founder trustee of the Ashington Group, member of the art advisory committee for the National Museum of Wales, and a tutor at the Prince's Drawing School.

GARY McCANN (Scenic and Costume Designer). Originally from Northern Ireland, Gary trained at Nottingham Trent University. Credits include: La Voix Humaine, L’Heure Espagnole, (Nationale Reisopera, Holland), The Girl in the Yellow Dress, (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Stockholm), Cosi fan Tutte (Schoenbrunn Palace, Vienna), Norma (National Opera, Moldova), Fidelio (Garsington Opera), 33 Variations (Volkstheater, Vienna), Hurricane (Arts Theatre, London), and Guys and Dolls (Bielefeld, Germany). Gary designed the original production of The Pitmen Painters at Live Theatre, Newcastle, and has subsequently adapted the designs for the National Theatre, London and the Volkstheater, Vienna. He is Lecturer in Scenography at the University of Kent. His website is found at www.garymccann.com.

DOUGLAS KUHRT (Lighting Design) lit the original production of The Pitmen Painters at Live Theatre and the subsequent productions at The National Theatre and Volkstheater in Vienna. Other productions include Kiss Of The Spider Woman (Hull Truck), Britain's Got Bhangra, (Rifco Arts, Theatre Royal Stratford East), Road Movie (Starving Artist's, Queer Up North), Witness for the Prosecution (Bill Kenwright), Educating Rita (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow), Home and Beauty (Lyric, Shaftsbury Avenue), Naked Justice (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Fascinating Aida (Theatre Royal, Haymarket). Doug has lit productions in London’s West End, throughout the UK, Europe and a bilingual version of King Lear in Shanghai.

MARTIN HODGSON (Sound Designer) was born in Darlington, County Durham and has been a sound engineer for many years. He was Head of Sound at Northern Stage, Newcastle where his design credits included 1984, Animal Farm, Romeo and Juliet, Grimm’s Tales, More Grimm’s Tales, The Princess and the Goblin and A Clockwork Orange. Sound designs for Live Theatre include Smack Family Robinson, Toast, A Nightingale Sang, The Lovers, Keepers of the Flame (co-production with RSC), Geoffs Dead, Disco for Sale, Up There in Lights, Me and Cilla, Top Girls, Motherland, Blackbird, Jump! and The Pitmen Painters (National Theatre transfers, Volkstheater, Vienna) and many other projects. He now lectures in Audio Production as well as being a freelance Sound Designer.

CHARLES MEANS (Production Stage Manager). MTC: Doubt, Mauritius, To Be or Not To Be, An Experiment with an Air Pump. Broadway: Next Fall, Oleanna, Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America, A Final Night with George W. Bush, Doubt and The Goat. National Tour: Doubt. Off-Broadway: Wit, The Laramie Project, Beckett/Albee as well as productions at Roundabout Theatre Company, Public Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop and the live HBO telecast of Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America.

ELIZABETH MOLONEY (Stage Manager). Broadway: Next Fall, The Royal Family, Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America, To Be or Not to Be, Mauritius, Doubt, Frozen, Enchanted April. National tour: Doubt. Off-Broadway credits include Doubt, Much Ado About Nothing, Frozen, Scattergood, Flesh and Blood, as well as productions at Roundabout, HSC, Market Theater, and the Market Theatre. For B.

LIVE THEATRE is one of the UKs leading new writing producing theatres with a 40 year history and a reputation for nurturing national and international talent. From its base on the quayside in Newcastle upon Tyne, Live Theatre aims to create and perform world-class plays of universal appeal, inspired by life in North East England.

THE NATIONAL THEATRE is central to the creative life of the UK. In its three auditoriums on the South Bank in London, the NT presents a mix of new plays and classics, aiming to re-energise the great traditions of the British stage and to expand the horizons of audiences and artists alike. Recent work in New York includes: The History Boys and The Seafarer. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

BOB BOYETT (Producer). Broadway: Enron; Next Fall; 13 A New Musical; The Seagull; Boeing-Boeing; South Pacific; Sunday in the Park with George; 39 Steps; The Seafarer; Rock ‘n’ Roll; Journey’s End; The Coast of Utopia; The Drowsy Chaperone; The History Boys; Monty Python’s Spamalot; The Pillowman; Glengarry Glenn Ross; The Frogs; Jumpers; Fiddler on the Roof; The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia; Topdog/Underdog.