The Kite Runner

In 1985, Giles was appointed artistic director of the Gate Theatre, London.
In 1989 he joined the National Theatre as literary manager before becoming the artistic director of the Palace Theatre, Watford, in 1995. Giles was artistic director of Nottingham Playhouse from 1999 to 2017. Over his career he has directed more than 50 plays, many of which have toured the UK or transferred to London.

Giles first directed The Kite Runner in 2013 and since then it has toured five times, had two seasons in the West End and been performed in Dubai. In 2022 the production completed a successful on Broadway and will be touring the US this year.

More recently Giles has worked on projects with actors as diverse as Stephen Fry, Toby Jones, Emily Atack & James Norton.

Giles is also a playwright and his work has been performed widely in the UK and Europe.

Barney is a designer and maker for theatre, live events and creative spaces. He has designed sets and costumes for over ninety stage productions, ranging from regional and international touring to London’s West End. His creative journey began as a film and television prop maker in a family run business. Barney continues to enjoy collaborating with artists and makers from diverse disciplines, reflecting his own broad creative background. He lives and works in the UK.

William Simpson is a projection designer and film editor.

Projection credits include The Kite Runner (West End, Broadway); Rocky Das Musical (Stuttgart, Stage Entertainment); Derren Brown – Miracle(National tour); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Clockwork (National Theatre); Richard III, Charlie Peace and Diary of a Football Nobody (Nottingham Playhouse); Theatre of Illumination (Light Night Leeds); Piano Circus – Trilogies (Kings Place) and the award winning adaptation of Of Mice and Men by Mike Kenny (Mind the Gap).

His film and television edit work includes Cause of Death (Channel 5); The Real Full Monty (ITV); The Pearl Island (NOW TV); Our Lives (BBC1); You Do You (Channel 4); Kite Strings (Undivided Pictures); Born Survivor (BBC3) and the award winning short, Soldiering On (Channel 4).

www.willsimpson.co

Theatre credits include: The Kite Runner (Broadway, USA, 2022; Nottingham Playhouse & Liverpool Playhouse, UK, with West End runs); Winter’s Tale (National Theatre, London, 2018 & 2019); Macbeth(National Theatre 2017 & UK tour 2018); The Jew of Malta (Royal Shakespeare Company); Anya (RSC); The American Pilot (RSC); White Out (RSC); Sleuth (Nottingham Playhouse & West Yorkshire Playhouse); Bitter Flower (Georgetown, Washington DC, 2022); Charlie Peace and Families of Lockerbie (both Nottingham Playhouse); Playhouse Creatures (New Vic); Intemperance (New Vic); Aesop’s Fables (two shows, nine plays, Unicorn Theatre); Margaret Catchpole (Eastern Angles); Three Wheels (Birmingham REP/ACE); Flight of Hope (People Show); Dreaming (BSA) and Nine Lives (Bridge Theatre, London, & Leeds Studio).

Jonathan won the Artists’ International Development Award (British Council & Arts Council England (ACE)), composing & MDing Living Lakes in Chicago, Ann Arbor, Michigan and New York in the U.S. with two leading lights in Anita Gonzalez and Joel Valentin-Martinez.

Classical commissions include: Gogmagog (English National Opera); Lights Out (New York Arts); Grimm Tales(City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Radio 3); Flight to the Ford (CBSO); It’s Not A Game (Evelyn Glennie) & The Long Lost Son (Evelyn Glennie & Armonico Consort); Black Heart & A Little Madness (BBC Singers), and O Rex Gentium (Ex Cathedra), winning national compositional awards with The Ice Palace Violin Concerto.  His music is broadcast and played worldwide through Audio Network.

Jonathan won a Royal Television Society Award with Losing It (Channel 4).  He holds both a Doctorate in Musical Composition and a First Class Honours in Music (BA).

Jonathan’s looking forward to two tours of The Kite Runner in 2024, one in the U.S.A. and a simultaneous one here in the United Kingdom and Ireland.  He is also looking forward to working again with Justin Audibert at Chichester Festival Theatre on The Caretaker later on this year.

Website: jonathangirling.co.uk

twitter: @jongirling

Drew trained at The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating in 2003.

Previous sound designs include:

The Kite Runner (Broadway, West End and the national tours); Enemy of the People, Pride and Prejudice, Home, Darkness Darkness, HOME, Time and the Conways, Richard III, My Judy Garland Life, Forever Young, Of Mice and Men, The Importance of Being Earnest, Private Lives, Grandpa in my Pocket: Teamwork, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Blithe Spirit, Vertigo (Nottingham Playhouse); The Threepenny Opera (Graeae Theatre Company); I Dare You (Leicester CURVE/Nottingham Playhouse); Mary Shelley (Shared Experience); Miss Nightingale (Mr Bugg Presents); Sweet Charity, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The New Wolsey Theatre) Volpone, Dr Faustus, Workshop Negative (Tangle Theatre Company); Soonchild (Red Earth); Dissidents(Tricycle Theatre); Stacked, Bait (Almeida Theatre); It Kind of Looks like a Doughnut (Leicester CURVE); Influence, The Dream Collector, Life Raft, Dust, Dreamtime (Derby Theatre); Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk (CAST Doncaster) Ritual (Birmingham Rep) Dick Whittington, Peter Pan, Jack and the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Legend of Robin Hood, Snow Whitw (Bury St Edmunds Theatre Royal); DNA, Seance on a Sunday Afternoon, Empty Bed Blues, Smile, The Wiz (Lakeside Arts).

Recent credits include: The Kite Runner (Nottingham Playhouse/Broadway/West End/UK tours); Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Pinocchio, Little Red Riding Hood (Nottingham Playhouse); The Wolf, The Duck and the Mouse and The Fishermen (New Perspectives at Unicorn Theatre and Trafalgar Studios); Hansel and Gretel,Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland (Derby Theatre); Crossings, Wolves are Coming for You and Here I Belong(Pentabus); FIVE, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and Three Keepers (WinterWalker at Derby Theatre, The Hullabaloo and Watermans). Kitty is a staff director for Box Clever, her recent tours include Jekyll and Hyde, Mark and the Marked and Feet First.

Kitty trained at Laban and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She is currently a PhD candidate at De Montfort University, researching the intersections between contemporary dance and theatrical clowning.

Philip is a member of the Equity Register of Fight Directors, and of the teaching and examining staff of the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat. He has worked throughout Europe and America, alongside his regular teaching commitments for RADA, Drama Studio London and other drama schools and universities.

Theatre credits include: Measure For Measure and Hamlet (The Globe); The Kite Runner (Broadway, USA); Ravenscourt (Hampstead Theatre); Shakespeare In Love (Norwegian National Theatre); The Prince And The Pauper, Richard III, Henry Vi, Bartholomew Fair – (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse); For Services Rendered, Stitchers (Jermyn Street Theatre); Botticelli In The Fire (Hampstead Theatre); Brassed Off (Northern Broadsides); Richard III (The Rose Theatre Blenheim); Twelfth Night, Merry Wives Of Windsor, Romeo & Juliet (Guildford Shakespeare Company); Henry V (The Rose Theatre York); Agreed (Glyndebourne Opera); Merry Wives Of Windsor, King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe); Andrea Chenier (Royal Opera House); Simon Boccanegra (Greek National Opera); Romeo Et Juliette (Korea National Opera); Titus Andronicus (Royal Shakespeare Company); The Outsider (The Print Room); Brighton Rock (Theatre Royal York).

Recently for the stage The Nutcracker for the New Vic Theatre Stoke on Trent.

Philip’s screen work includes films for Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures and documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4. Recently on television he was Sword Master for Lockwood & Co.

Damian trained at Oxford University (BA, English Literature & Language) and Arts Educational (MA, Creative Practice in Musical Theatre).

Damian was the resident director for The Kite Runner for over a year, at the Playhouse Theatre, London, and for the UK & Ireland tour, 2017-18. For its subsequent international tour, he moved to Associate Director and was also the Associate Director for the Broadway production, playing at the Hayes Theater, New York. He returned to America as Associate Director for the North America tour of The Kite Runner.

In 2023, he also directed and managed the sold-out Neighbours Celebration Tour, playing to 32,000 people across the UK’s finest venues, including three nights at the London Palladium, and then transferring the show to Melbourne, home of Ramsay Street. Damian is also the Director and Co-Producer of the annual Whatsonstage Awards, celebrating theatre all across the UK.

After directing various projects for UK Productions over 10 years, Damian is now in his third year of working for the company on a full-time basis as Artistic Producer to lead, inspire and deliver the next phase of its journey to create innovative, imaginative and outstanding theatre. His UKP directing credits include: Oklahoma! (Assistant Director, UK Tour); and several pantomimes including the very first production of Beauty and the Beast (Blackpool Grand); Cinderella(nominated, Best Director at the Great British Pantomime Awards); Sleeping Beauty (Basingstoke) and Aladdin(Malvern).

Damian’s directing credits also include: When Midnight Strikes (nominated for Best Musical Production in the Off West End Awards); the London revival of Tick, Tick…Boom! (Union Theatre); West Side Story (Theatre Royal, Windsor for Bill Kenwright Ltd); Dick Whittington (Beck Theatre, Winner – Best Pantomime, 2014); six seasons of NewsRevue (Canal Café Theatre); I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (both Edinburgh Festival and subsequent London transfer); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (for HM Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Celebrations); 42^nd Street and Honk! (Bridewell Theatre); Twelve Angry Men and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Ready Ay Ready Productions).

For over a decade, he directed the Edinburgh Festival smash hit, sell out Shakespeare For Breakfast (Winner, Best Comedy, 2017), including two London transfers, as well as devising and directing its spin-off, Dickens For Dinner (Winner, Best Comedy, 2018). In addition to this, Damian has directed and produced 50 other productions at the Edinburgh Festival.

Damian has directed the premiere productions of many new musicals or workshops, including the world premieres of Equally (Cockpit Theatre); You Know How To Love Me (The Other Palace); The Poltergeist of Cock Lane (C venues); Don’t Tell Grandma (Chiswick Playhouse); Just Pretend (Putney Arts); Lia’s Guide To Winning The Lottery (Perfect Pitch) and London Street (ArtsEd).

Assistant/Resident credits include: Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls – The Musical (UK & Ireland Tour); the UK & International tour of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Associate/Resident on the UK premiere of Little Women the Musical (LOST Theatre); Me And My Girl (London Palladium); Legally Blonde (Aberystwyth Arts Centre); Into The Woods (Upstairs at the Gatehouse); Kiss of the Spider Woman (ArtsEd); David Mamet’s The Shawl (Canal Café Theatre); The Railway Children (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane).

He also worked on the world premiere of The Witches of Eastwick (Theatre Royal Drury Lane for Cameron Mackintosh); the National Theatre’s UK tour of Honk! And the West End production of Mary Poppins (Prince Edward Theatre for Cameron Mackintosh).

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