PETER BROOK (Director) was born in London in 1925. He directed his first play there in 1943. He then went on to direct over 70 productions in London, Paris and New York. His work with the Royal Shakespeare Company includes Love’s Labour’s Lost (1946), Measure for Measure (1950), Titus Andronicus (1955), King Lear (1962), Marat/Sade (1964), US (1966), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970) and Antony and Cleopatra (1978). In 1971, he founded the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris, and in 1974 opened its permanent base in the Bouffes du Nord Theatre. There, he directed Timon of Athens, The Ik, Ubu aux Bouffes, Conference of the Birds, L’Os, The Cherry Orchard, The Mahabharata, Woza Albert!, The Tempest, The Man Who, Qui est là?, O! les Beaux Jours, Je suis un Phénomène, Le Costume, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Far Away, La Mort de Krishna, Ta Main dans la Mienne, Le Grand Inquisiteur, Tierno Bokar, and Sizwe Banzi is dead—many of these performing both in French and English. In opera, he directed La Bohème, Boris Godounov, The Olympians, Salomé and Le Nozze de Figaro at Covent Garden; Faust and Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, La Tragédie de Carmen and Impressions of Pelleas at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris and Don Giovanni for the Aix en Provence Festival. Peter Brook’s autobiography, Threads of Time, was published in 1998 and joins other titles including The Empty Space (1968)—translated into over 15 languages—The Shifting Point (1987), Evoking (and Forgetting) Shakespeare (2002), and There Are No Secrets (1993). His films include Lord of the Flies, Marat/Sade, King Lear, Moderato Cantabile, The Mahabharata and Meetings with Remarkable Men.

LILO BAUR (Assistant Director) Born in Switzerland and living between England, France and Spain, Lilo Baur has primarily worked in England. She performed at the Royal National Theatre in Orestia, directed by Katie Mitchell, and in The Merchant of Venice, directed by Rochard Olivier. Her career took off with The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, directed by Simon McBurney, for which she received the Dora Canadian Award and the Evening News prize for best actress. She then performed as Ann Marie Stretter in India Song at the Gate Theatre, and in The Honest Whore directed by Jack Shepherd. An original member of Simon Mc Burney’s theatre company Complicité, she performed in The Visit, The Street of Crocodiles, Help I’m Alive, The Winter’s Tale and Lights. In France, she performed in Honorée par un petit monument and Alice in Wonderland, directed by Jean Rochereau and presented at the Festival d’Avignon as well as in Peter Brook’s French version of The Tragedy of Hamlet which toured internationally. In films, she acted in Vollmand by F. Murer, The Devils Arithmetic by Dona Deidge, Don Quixote by Peter Yates and The Way We Live Now by David Yates. She directed Roi Cerf by Carlo Gozzi, and The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare at Amore Theatre in Athens, which became an international success, and Cuina i dependències at Micalet Theatre in Valencia, Spain. Recently she has worked as a collaborator on The Tempest with Cel Ras, a Spanish dance company, and directed Robinson & Crusoe in Athens. This season, she will be directing in French Fish Love, a play she has written based on the works of Anton Tchekhov.

MARIE-HELENE ESTIENNE (Assistant Director) has taken part in many theatre and cinema projects as author and production assistant. While a journalist at Le Nouvel Observateur and Les Nouvelles Littéraires, she became Michel Guy’s assistant, working on the programming of the Paris Festival d’Automne. In 1974 she worked on the casting of Peter Brook’s Timon of Athens. She joined C.I.C.T. in 1977 for Ubu aux Bouffes and has since been production assistant for all the Centre’s work. She was also Brook’s assistant for La Tragédie de Carmen and The Mahabharata and artistic collaborator for The Tempest, Impressions de Pelléas and more recently The Tragedy of Hamlet (2000). This collaboration developed to include dramaturgy for Woza Albert!, The Man Who, and Qui est là?. She co-authored, with Peter Brook, Je suis un Phénomène, presented at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord (1998). She produced the French language adaptation of Le Costume (“The Suit”) by Can Themba, created in 1999 at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, as well as Far Away by Caryl Churchill in 2002. She collaborated directing and designing together with Jean Claude Carrière the texts for La Tragédie d’Hamlet (2002) and La Mort de Krishna. She recently realized the French adaptation of Ta main dans la mienne by Carol Rocamora, designed in 2003 the theatrical adaptation of Le Grand Inquisiteur by Dostoïevski and in 2004, Tierno Bokar from Amadou Hampaté Bâ’s works. She recently completed the French adaptation of the play Sizwe Banzi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona.