Creatives
Director
Adam Spreadbury-Maher is an international opera and theatre director. He trained as an operatic tenor in Australia before training as a director at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Before leaving to London he won the Canberra Critics Circle Award (Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing) and the Gold Award at the Canberra Area Theatre Awards for excellence.
Once in London, Adam established himself as a freelance director, working at the Liverpool Everyman and Arcola Theatre in London. As Associate Director of the White Bear Theatre (London) he directed the UK premiere of Louis Nowra’s Cosi and the world premieres of Duncan Ley’s The Ides of March and Daniel Reitz’s Studies for a Portrait, which later transferred to the Oval House Theatre and then to the King’s Head Theatre (London).
Adam founded the Cock Tavern Theatre (London) in 2008; it was here that he produced premieres by Tennessee Williams, Hannie Rayson, Jack Hibberd, Edward Bond (as part of a six-decade retrospective include a production directed by Bond), the landmark Olivier award-winning 2009 La Boheme (currently the UK’s longest running opera) and won the Peter Brook Empty Space Award, and, Best Artistic Director at the Fringe Report Awards. He founded the multi-award winning mid-scale touring opera company OperaUpClose in 2009.
In 2010 he became the Artistic Director of the King’s Head Theatre (a position he held for a decade), directing operas such as Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and La Boheme, and plays such as Tommy Murphy’s Strangers in Between, Kevin Elyot’s Coming Clean. In 2013 he founded the Hope Theatre. Adam has directed seven West End productions including Puccini’s Tosca (Soho Theatre) and La Boheme (Trafalgar Studios) as well as transfers of Strangers in Between and two seasons of Coming Clean. For the Riverside Studios (London) Adam directed Peter Gill’s Sleepers Den and the first revival of The York Realist marking the playwright’s 70th birthday and the first script written by Gill at the venue he founded in the 1970s. His opera work has toured extensively across the UK, Europe and Australia.
Adam’s 2015 production of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting has played five London and seven Edinburgh seasons, multiple UK tours, New York, Australia, and continues to tour internationally, with over 1,500 performances to date. In 2017 he directed Amanda Muggleton in a new production of Terrence McNally’s Masterclass in an extensive Australian tour including the Sydney Opera House. In 2019 he won the Best Theatre Award for the King’s Head Theatre at the London Pub Theatre Awards. Adam commenced training to become a veterinary surgeon at the University of Bristol in 2021, and continues to work as a freelance director in the UK, Europe and Australia.
Lighting Designer
Boys in the Buff (Best lighting design OFFIE Nomination); Twinkle, Tickle, Boys in the Buff, Love is Blue (Drayton Arms Theatre and Ed Fringe 2023); Soho Boy (Drayton Arms Theatre and Ed Fest 2022); Bette Midler & Me (Garden Theatre, Ed Fest 2022, Town and Gown, Drayton Arms Theatre); Frostbite, Next Thing You Know, Pippin, Fanny & Stella (Garden Theatre); Undetectable (Best lighting design OFFIE Nomination); The Crumple Zone (King’s Head Theatre); Skin Deep (Ed Fest 2018 and UK Tour); Marry Me A Little, Muscles the Musical, Alvaro’s Balcony, Discotivity, Stand Tall, Vincent River, The Hot Mikado, Get Aladdin, A Class Act, Next Thing You Know, Nunsense, Bakewell Bakeoff, Meet Me in St. Louis, No Way to Treat a Lady, The Man Inside, Damn Yankees (OFFIE award nomination), She Loves Me, In the Dead of Night, The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Sincerely Yours, Personals, Romance Romance, Devilish the musical (Landor Theatre); Margot, Dame, the Most Famous Ballerina in the World and Boys in the Buff, both at the King’s Head Theatre.
Other credits: Luseil Stadium (FIFA World Cup 2022); Erasmus Bridge (Rotterdam); Disney on Ice (7 continents, Tokyo Budokan, New Orleans Super Dome, Toronto Sky Dome, NYC Radio City Music Hall), Royal Wedding Dress Exhibition (Kensington Palace), #Hashtag Lightie (Arcola Theatre), Cirque Enchantment (UK Tour) and Jazz Dance Company UK Tour (8th year). Do you Have a Secret Crush (Sleeping with Straight Men)? (LOST Theatre).
Website: lambcolighting.co.uk
Author, Strangers in Between
Tommy Murphy is a screenwriter and playwright based in Sydney, where his new stage adaptation of Nevil Shute’s On The Beach premiered in August at Sydney Theatre Company to five-star reviews. His earlier adaptation of Tim Conigrave’s memoir Holding The Man plays regularly around the world, having transferred to the West End in 2010. It will see a revival next February at Belvoir Theatre, Sydney. The film, for which Tommy was Associate Producer and screenwriter, won multiple awards and is available on all streamers in the UK. Tommy won the National Theatre Award from the Australia Council in 2020 for his play Packer & Sons depicting the Murdochs’ rival media dynasty. He is also known for his play Mark Colvin’s Kidney, a phone hacking love story, for which he has received a grant to develop for screen. His screen credits include Significant Others, a six-part series Tommy created in 2022, and episodes of The Devil’s Playground, Fighting Season, and The Twelve for Warner Bros. He won an Australian Writers Guild Award last year for his radio play Call Me Back and is currently developing a musical based on the song catalogue of John Farnham.
Original composition
Musical Director credits include: Tickle and Boys In The Buff (Drayton Arms Theatre and Ed Fest 2023); Soho Boy (Drayton Arms Theatre and Ed Fest 2022); Romance/Romance, Fanny and Stella, Grindr: The Opera (Above The Stag Theatre); Metropolis, The Kissing Dance, Wonderful Town (Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre); Into the Woods (Cockpit Theatre); It’s a Bird…It’s A Plane…It’s Superman (Leicester Square Theatre); The Rippers Five (Theatro Technis); Naked Boys Singing (King’s Head Theatre and Garden Theatre); Sondheim by Sondheim (Camden Roundhouse). He was nominated for a Broadway World Award for The Apple Tree (Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre) and composed incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Blue Elephant Theatre).
Cabaret includes: Mountains – A Musical Journey (St James Studio & Jermyn Street Theatre); An Evening of Sondheim (Lauderdale House); Don’t Ask the Lady! (Crazy Coqs); Sondheim Divas and Tim McArthur and Friends (Hippodrome Creatives Casino).
Aaron’s work as musical director and orchestrator can be heard on the original cast album of Grindr The Opera and The Pleasure Garden (Jay Records).
Other info: Aaron has received ten Off West End Award Nominations for Best Musical Director.
Set and costume designer
David has designed the sets and costumes for plays, musicals and other spectacles at venues of every scale from International arena tours to studio theatres via prominent international and regional producing houses and the West End. Some of his many credits include Strictly Come Dancing The Professionals (UK Tour), Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway on Tour, (UK Arena tour), The Last five Years, Associate designer, The Other Palace, (directed by Jason Robert Brown).
National Touring productions of End of the Rainbow, Little Shop of Horrors and Our House. Hair in Concert (London Palladium), Pippin (Charing Cross Theatre), Heathers The Musical, (Theatre Royal Haymarket, National tours and The Other Palace), The Pleasure Garden (Offie 2021 Award winner, best set design), The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me (Wimbledon Studio Theatre), But I’m A Cheerleader (Turbine Theatre), Oh, And Another Thing, an evening with Su Pollard (Tour), Rose starring Dame Maureen Lipman (Ambassadors Theatre).
Movement/fight/intimacy
Lawrence is an Actor, Director, Movement Specialist & Fully Certified Fight and Intimacy Director with over 25 years experience in movement, direction and a wide range of performance spreading throughout Australia, Asia, The Middle East, Canada, Europe and the UK.
Lawrence has worked with Adam Spreadbury-Maher on several projects, including Holding The Man, the Edward Bond Season, La Boheme, Tosca, Trainspotting Live, and the original London productions of Strangers In Between.
At the Golden Goose, Lawrence previously directed Dinner With Friends (Frontfoot Theatre) and has just finished performing as ‘Rick’ in the award nominated Violence & Son (Fricative Theatre).
As a movement specialist with a focus on Fight, Intimacy, Commedia and Character work, Lawrence is qualified by SAFDi, BADC & IOSS with over 25 years of experience, covering professional Live Theatre, Opera, Film, & Mainstream TV. He currently lectures in movement at East 15 Acting School, Meisner Approach for BodyMindVoice & Acting, Voice & Movement at Identity School of Acting.
www.instagram.com/lozcarmichael/
Assistant director
Meeri is in her third year on the BA Acting and Contemporary Theatre course at East 15 Acting School. She is a Finnish creative with a jazz dance training (Kerava Dance Institute) and a background in physical theatre.
Professional credits include: Performer and puppeteer in Think Me in Circles (Vault Festival 2023); Ada in Adrift (Camden Fringe 2023).
Theatre credits while training include: Lady Anne in Richard III (Trilby James & Jess Tucker Green – East 15); Mary Warren in The Crucible (John Gillett – East 15).
Dialect coach
Theatre includes: Watch on the Rhine (Donmar), Mumsie (Hull Truck), Blonde Bombshells (Octagon), Amelie (Criterion), When the Long Trick’s Over (New Wolsey), Billy Elliot (Curve), Our Man in Havana (Watermill), My Cousin Rachel (Theatre Royal Bath), Rose (Hope Mill Theatre), Little Voice (Theatre by the Lake), Ink (Almeida), Hogarth’s Success (Rose Theatre), My Mother Said (Crucible).
TV includes: Horrible Histories, Endeavour, Gangs of London, Life after Life, Vera, Documentary Now, Pennyworth, Eric, Ernie and Me, The Loudest Voice.
Radio includes: X Files: Cold Cases, My Name is Why, The Testaments.
Film includes: The Railway Children Return, The Legend of Ochi, The Wasp, Saltburn.
Elspeth regularly makes contributions on programmes such as Melvyn Bragg’s Matter of the North (BBC), An Immigrant’s Guide to Britain (Ch 4) and The Royals (Netflix).
Cast
Stephen was born and raised in Sydney, Australia before joining a theatre-in-education tour and moving to Melbourne, which then became his new home.
Just after the turn of the millennium Stephen moved to London where he undertook a Master’s in Acting at East 15 Acting school. Since then he has appeared in numerous plays, short films and commercials. This is Stephen’s fourth time playing Peter in Strangers in Between: two seasons at the King’s Head Theatre, Islington, then a third season at Trafalgar Studios 2 in the West End.
Stephen has also performed with “Above the Stag” Theatre, including playing Dad in The Sum Of Us. He played Henry Higgins in an 8-month European tour of Pygmalian for TNT Theatre and also Scrooge for another TNT European tour of A Christmas Carol.
Alex is an actor from Oxford who trained at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. His roles whilst training include Hamlet in Hamlet, Konstantin in The Seagull, Robin in No Quarter and Federonzi in A Life of Galileo.
He is also a playwright whose plays have been highly commended by the Royal Court and National Theatre, and a member of The Writer’s Club at Director’s Cut Theatre. He wrote and starred in his own short play Our House is on Fire earlier this year at The Cockpit, produced by Patch Plays.
Alex is thrilled to be making his professional debut as Shane in Strangers in Between.
Matthew Mitcham OAM is a retired Australian diver and trampolinist. Born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, he excelled in the sport of diving.
Matthew is credited with having received the highest single-dive score in Olympic history. At the 2008 Olympic Games, in Beijing, China, Mitcham chose to execute a two-and-one-half somersault with two-and-one-half twists in the pike position for his last dive. The dive had a very high degree of difficulty with 3.8.
Mitcham scored four 10’s, giving him not only the highest score on a single dive ever, but the gold medal for the event as well. This made him the first openly gay athlete to win an Olympic gold medal!
Mitcham wrote his autobiography in 2012, Twists and Turns. Soon afterward, it was made into a cabaret show, starring Mitcham, and travelled around the country of Australia (2014-15) getting great reviews. The Australian Stage said: “…a born performer who soon has the audience eating out of his hand … utterly charming character… innate talent” while the West Australian newspaper described him as “a likable and engaging performer”.
Matthew was in the 2019 television series The Pool, in the 2021 film We all lie my darlings as well as featuring in the podcast streaming series Move your mind with Nick Bracks.
Matthew is thrilled to play the dual roles of Ben/Will in Strangers in Between.