London Theatre Exchange

Background
London Theatre Exchange (LTEx) was formed in 1991 by a group of senior actors, directors and teachers from The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), The Royal National Theatre (RNT), The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and LAMDA.

Headed by award-winning director/producer Chris Hayes, it evolved from their association with North Bank Productions, a commercial production company that had been producing in London's West End since the mid-1980's.

Hayes and the other founding members sought to broaden their creative horizons and began seeking out opportunities to work with actors, playwrights and companies from the international theatre community. Their goal was to provide audiences and students of theatre with a multi-cultural theatrical experience, while encouraging a rich collaborative environment for the artists

LTE now numbers some thirty Associate Artists - actors, teachers, directors, writers, designers and technicians - drawn from leading theatre companies and training schools in Britain and America.
They have already established something of a reputation for their innovative production style and in association with producers in the USA they are now developing a series of small-scale ensemble shows with American and British casts. Following the New York run of HV future plans on both sides of the Atlantic include The Breadwinner by Somerset Maugham, Yelena a new play by Reza de Wet, M4M an adaptation from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and a new play with music The Panbeaters, a modern version of Phaedre set in Trinidad.

Classic Theatre Workshops (for both actors and directors) currently scheduled for 2000 include Munich, Buenos Aires, Nashville and Los Angeles.

Objectives
LTEx was set up as an independent company to work in partnership with like-minded organisations overseas to develop these international cross-cultural productions and training workshops. Underlying the work are four principal objectives:
· to re-vitalise the presentation of classical texts by integrating the strengths of different theatrical traditions
· to facilitate the inter-change of practitioners between countries
· to create possibilities for original writing in a global context
· to research and develop new training methods for today's modern actor


TEACHER WORKSHOP - TUTORS

KATYA BENJAMIN (Movement& Physicality)
Katya works as a movement and Alexander teacher at RADA and the Trinity College of Music. Formerly she taught at The Royal College of Music and The Guildhall School. After graduating in Chinese, Russian and French at Cambridge University she acted professionally in repertory playing major classical and contemporary roles and participating in new play workshops with writers like Tom Stoppard and Howard Brenton.

In 1983 she qualified as an Alexander teacher, since when she has devoted herself full-time to developing her own highly-acclaimed method applying the technique to movement, acting, singing and instrument playing. She also teaches privately in London training professional actors and has recently been working at the Old Vic theatre in London. She has been with London Theatre Exchange since its inception and has run workshops with them in New York, Buenos Aries, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Milan and Munich. Most recently she worked on three of their workshops at Grand Valley University, Michigan in August.


CHRIS HAYES (Performance & Presentation/Course Director)
Founder/Director of London Theatre Exchange, Chris's directing career spans over thirty years with more than 200 productions to his credit. He has worked with many leading companies in the UK including The Old Vic, The Royal Court, the RSC and The Royal National Theatre and during the 70s and 80s he ran four major public theatres as Artistic Director. His productions range from classics like Marlowe's Edward llnd, Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and Chekov's Three Sisters, to the London premieres of To Kill a Mockingbird, Arthur Miller's Playing for Time, The Anastasia File and Anne Frank, and musicals Sweeney Todd, The Mikado, Cabaret and Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Overseas he is a frequent guest director with productions in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Tel Aviv, Belfast and Dublin. In 1999 he directed the off-Broadway production of Howard Brenton's Bloody Poetry and Othello in Atlanta. His latest production in London was Crossing, a controversial new play from South Africa, which he his currently adapting for film. In May this year he directed the inaugural production of Hamlet at the new 500 seater Rose Wagner Theater in Salt Lake City.

He has been associated with RADA as a director and teacher for 30 years - most recently as Director of Short Courses heading the MA programme in association with King's College and running RADA's professional 'Acting Shakespeare' courses. Other teaching includes The Central School of Speech and Drama, The Actor's Centre and LAMDA and visiting tutor to the MA Directors' course at Goldsmiths College, London University. While directing seasons at the historic Mermaid Theatre in London's West End in the early 90s, he established London Theatre Exchange with a group of leading theatre practitioners, to develop international co-productions and cross-cultural training programmes for actors, directors and teachers. To date the company has run seventeen workshops in the UK, the USA, South America and Europe.
Following the workshop in Middlebury Chris returns to London finish directing a thirteen part drama-documentary series for London Weekend Television before going to Germany to direct Romeo and Juliet. His next production in London in 2002 will be the premiere of 1588 - Annus Horribilis a new play about Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots.


WILLIAM RICHARDS (Voice & Communication)
William trained in Theatre at Bretton Hall College, University of Leeds and at The Central School of Speech and Drama. At postgraduate level, the practice of Rudolph Laban was the basis for voice and text development. William began working first in community and educational theatre and directing projects in the UK. He then ran a five-year project for the British Council in Sri Lanka exploring mixed language physical theatre. A developing interest in the actors' skills brought him to work in drama schools and for the past six years he has been a tutor in voice and classical text at RADA where he also runs the RADA in Business programme.

As a freelance voice and text specialist he has worked on productions with the RSC and the Royal National Theatre as well as other companies across the UK. Within the opera world, the development of vocal and physical expression with singers has taken William into productions at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris, The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and English National Opera. For several years he was adjunct tutor with NYU. He is currently running the RADA at the Old Vic programme in London. He is London Theatre Exchange's senior voice specialist and has worked on five London Theatre Exchange courses most recently in Salt Lake City in July earlier this year.