The Woman in Black

A play by Stephen Mallatratt based on the novel by Susan Hill

Festival Hall May 27 – 30 at 8:30pm, June 1 – 8 at 8:30pm, June 10 –13 at 8:30pm

Artistic Team Director Robin Herford

Associate Director Maggie Spanuello Designer Michael Holt

Lighting Designer Anshuman Bhatia Sound Designer Sebastian Frost Original Sound Design Rod Mead

Vision Productions Imogen Finlayson Casting Director Laura Stanczyk

General Managers Pemberley Productions with Martin Platt Producer PW Productions and Pemberley Productions Stage Managers Tim Smith,Clara Mooney

Production Manager Anshuman Bhatia

Cast Peter Bradley, Nick Owen

1 hour, 45 minutes | Performed with one intermission

These performances are made possible in part through funds from the Spoleto Festival USA Endowment, generously supported by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

Artistic Team

ANSHUMAN BHATIA (lighting designer and production manager) designs for opera, theater, and dance. His work has been seen at Santa Fe Opera, Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts, Dublin’s Civic Theater, Soho Rep, The Public, The Atlantic, Arena Stage, The Park Avenue Armory, Bard Music Festival, WP Theater, The Juilliard School, Madison Opera, Kentucky Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Classic Stage Company, HERE Arts Center, LoftOpera, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Keen Company, Pacific Symphony, Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Virginia Arts Festival, Rattlestick Theater, The Sheen Center, and Troy’s Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). He holds a Master of Fine Arts from New York University.

IMOGEN FINLAYSON (Vision Productions) trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (New York Company, 2018-19) and the Cours Florent (Paris). Previously Vision Productions for The Woman in Black at The McKittrick Hotel in New York in 2020; other recent theater credits include the John Wick immersive theater experience, Step One, The Moors, The Richard Project, Star Spangled, Spring Awakening, Blue Stockings, and Cymbeline and the Tempest. She was also part of the SGCNZ Young New Zealand Shakespeare Company (performances included the Globe and the Minack).

ROBIN HERFORD (director) read philosophy and English at the University of St Andrews and trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Much of Herford’s early career was involved with Sir Alan Ayckbourn and the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. He has appeared in the original production of more Ayckbourn plays than any other actor and has directed over 30 of his productions. The Woman in Black, which Herford commissioned and directed in 1987, has been running in London for over 30 years and has completed 12 UK tours. Herford now directs much more than he acts. The last two productions he directed were Stray Dogs and The Woman in Black at McKittrick’s Hotel in New York, where it won Best Revival in the Off-Broadway Alliance Awards.

SUSAN HILL (author) was born in Scarborough and took her English degree at King’s College London. Her best-known books, apart from The Woman in Black, are the novels I’m the King of the Castle, Strange Meeting, and In the Springtime of the Year. Her books have won the Whitbread Fiction Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and have also been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her most recent books are a trilogy of crime: The Various Haunts of Men, The Pure in Heart, and The Risk of Darkness. Hill lives in a farmhouse in rural Gloucestershire from where she runs her own small publishing company, Long Barn Books. Hill was awarded a CBE in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours.

MICHAEL HOLT (designer) is designer for drama, opera, and ballet who has collaborated with leading arts companies around the world. He has been associated with playwright Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough for over 40 years. West End credits include The Woman in Black; Absurd Person Singular (Whitehall Theatre), The Glory of the Garden (Duke of York’s Theatre), Rough Justice (Apollo Theatre), and June Moon (Vaudeville Theatre). International credits include productions in New York, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Norway, and Austria. Opera productions include collaborations with the Royal Opera House, Copenhagen; the Avignon Festival, France; the Knokke Opera Festival, Belgium; and The Brisbane Festival, Australia.

SEBASTIAN FROST (sound designer) has numerous theater design credits, including The Last Ship (UK, US); 170 Days in Nanjing (Nanjing Opera); Memoirs of a Sailor (Kuwait); Kiss Me Kate (WNO); Jekyll & Hyde (Old Vic); An Inspector Calls (UK, US); White Christmas, Annie, A Christmas Carol (Leeds Playhouse); Calamity Jane (Watermill, UK); The Witches (Curve), If Only, Antony & Cleopatra (Chichester); The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe (Kensington Gardens); Decade (Headlong); Little Shop Of Horrors (Birmingham); The Magic Flute (Duke of York’s Teatre); The Common Pursuit, Take Flight, Total Eclipse (Menier); Trainspotting (UK); Tonight’s The Night (Victoria Palace); Boy Band (Gielgud), Kat And The Kings (London, Cort, Cape Town); Summer Begins (Donmar); and Fame (UK). In 2008, he received a Tony nomination for Best Sound Design of a Musical for Sunday in the Park with George on Broadway.

STEPHEN MALLATRATT (playwright) wrote his early plays while working as an actor in Alan Ayckbourn’s Scarborough company. Several of these were produced and directed by Ayckbourn at Scarborough, and commissions from other theaters followed. In addition to original plays, Mallatratt wrote adaptations of books for both TV and theater. His television work included The Innocents for YTV, and he adapted the Forsyte Saga for Granada. The Woman in Black is now in its thirtieth year at the Fortune Theatre in the West End and in its ninth year at the Rafael Solaria theatre in Mexico. It has been translated into at least 12 languages and performed in 41 countries. Mallatratt passed away on November 22, 2004.

CLARA MOONEY (stage manager) was company manager on the 2018 – 2019 first national tour of The Woman in Black. She is a Brooklyn based writer and director. Her recent credits include The Commons (d. Emma Miller, The Hearth) Macbeth; (d. Posner and Teller, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); A Christmas Carol (d. Emily Penick, ACT Theatre); and The Crucible (d. John Langs, ACT Theatre.) Mooney holds a BA in Drama from Kenyon College and is thrilled to be a part of this production.

PEMBERLEY PRODUCTIONS (producer) is a New Yorkbased producer and general manager. In the 2019 – 2020 season, Pemberley toured—or was due to tour—The Last Ship, starring Sting in the US; Romantics Anonymous in the US; Ensemble Basiani (Republic of Georgia) in the US; and two sit-down engagements of The Woman in Black to Shakespeare Theatre DC and the McKittrick Hotel, New York. Previous seasons have seen Pemberley tour the Public Theater’s (New

York) international tour of The Apple Family Plays. Other production credits include two US tours of Filter Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company production of 12th Night, two US tours of Paterson Joseph’s one-man play Sancho, a US tour of The National Theatre of Great Britain’s landmark production of An Inspector Calls, and a national tour of the London production of The Woman in Black.

PW PRODUCTIONS (producer) is one of the West End’s most prolific and significant theatre producers, responsible for some of the most successful productions in British theatre since it was founded in 1983 by Peter Wilson, MBE. The company has acted as general manager and production accountant for more than 500 productions throughout the world. PW Productions— in partnership with promoters and co-producers—has also presented work in Japan, Singapore, Canada, the US, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Australia, and Hong Kong.

MAGGIE SPANUELLO (associate director) has worked on The Woman in Black (McKittrick Hotel). Regional credits include The Woman in Black; The Tempest (The Smith Center, South Coast Repertory); A Christmas Carol, Gutenberg! The Musical!, and Forever Plaid (Milwaukee Repertory Theater); Murder for Two (Hope Summer Rep), and Completely Hollywood Abridged (Old Creamery Theatre). In Chicago, her credits include Macbeth and The Tempest with Posner and Teller, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); The 39 Steps (BrightSide Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare 400 Chicago/Civic Orchestra of Chicago); and The Valkyries (Gorilla Tango Theatre). International credits include Next to Normal, Seussical!, and Blooming Season (Shanghai Conservatory of Music).

TIM SMITH (stage manager) began working as a tour manager for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1999, touring the UK, USA, and Japan. Tim has stage-managed productions for Druid Theatre Company, Garsington Opera, Tricycle Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, in London’s West End, and on national UK tours. He has been proud to bring shows as a stage manager in the United States to Lincoln Center Festival, the New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas, and the Guthrie Theater. Actors

PETER BRADLEY (Arthur Kipps) has performed on stage with the Tony Award-winning Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf, and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. He is also an artistic associate with Provision Theatre and Irish Theatre Chicago. Bradley received a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for his performance in The Woman in Black at the Royal George Theatre in 2019. He has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor); Memphis Symphony Orchestra (Mei-Ann Chen, conductor); and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra as narrator (Rafael Payare, conductor). His television credits include Missing Persons, Angel Street, The Untouchables, and Early Edition.

NICK OWEN (The Actor) has theater credits that include The Woman in Black (First US Tour); Peter and the Starcatcher (First National Tour); The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Steppenwolf for Young Adults); April 4th, 1968 (Indiana Repertory Theatre); Peter and the Starcatcher (Peninsula Players); The Picture of Dorian Gray and Wuthering Heights (Life Line Theater); Iphigenia 2.0 (Next Theatre Company); That Face and Reverb (Redtwist Theatre); Aftermath (Signal Ensemble); Ah, Wilderness! (Eclipse Theatre Company); and The Ring Cycle (The Building Stage). His film and television credit include Black Box (Feature), Chicago Med, The Chi, Sirens, and Chicago Fire.