PAL People
PAL Staff
PAL Trustees
PAL Directors
PAL Associates
A personal statement from Susan Benn, founder and director of PAL
Susan Benn - Director
Susan is founder director of PAL. She is a former editor, publisher and photographer. She has overall responsibility for shaping PAL's research agenda and international programme of Labs. She appoints the Directors for each of the Labs. She supports the design and further development of new pilot Labs, established programmes and pioneering research with partner organisations, including funding bodies, committed to challenging the status quo. Susan also creates new forms of PAL research Labs for a range of clients and is developing a sustainable structure for the wider dissemination and application of PAL models with commercial and educational partners across the UK and abroad. Susan is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce and a member of the RSA Council.
Christopher Parker - Finance Director
Since 2000, Christopher Parker, a chartered accountant, has been the part-time Finance Director of PAL. He has also been the part-time FD of the Commonwork group of trusts and companies which owns Bore Place in Kent, the venue for most of PAL's Labs. In his early career Christopher worked in Southern Africa and Malta for local governments or UN agencies and then spent ten years with a City merchant bank, eventually becoming head of corporate finance and a member of the executive committee. He left the bank to take over a small, publicly quoted retailing company which was transformed into, firstly, a property investment company and then one of the UK's larger waste management groups. Since 1995 he has been a self-employed consultant and part-time FD for smaller companies and enterprises.
Kathy Pimlott - General Manager
After graduating with a degree in Drama and English from Exeter University, Kathy worked with children and adults with severe learning, psychological and behavioural problems. This was followed by six years as co-ordinator of the Covent Garden Community Association, a community action group, campaigning in the fields of planning, housing and social provision. After brief stints as production manager of political risk journals for the Financial Times, and as the general manager of an arts festival, Kathy spent the next twelve years in the publicity department of a leading international arts television production and distribution company. She became PAL's General Manager in spring 2003.
PAL Trustees
Clare Lovett (Chair)
Since December 2007 Clare has been Edcuation Director at the Spitalfields Festival, having been Education and Community Director at the London Philharmonic Orchestra for several years. Previously she was a Learning Manager at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, managing projects from quantum physics to film making. Before joining NESTA she worked within the dance sector, at The Place and as a Dance Officer at the Arts Council, with special responsibility for the independent dance sector portfolio and the development of dance and technology projects. Working with PAL enables her to combine her broad interest in the arts, science, technology and learning.
Nicholas Bingham (Vice Chair)
For twelve years President-International of Sony Television Entertainment, Sony Pictures' division responsible for world-wide programme sales and distribution, new channel development and management and local programme production, Nick Bingam was also chairman of VIVA TV, the German music TV channel, in which Sony Pictures was a major shareholder. He is currently Chairman of First4Internet, a software company specialising in advanced information security technology for the internet and copy control and DRM solutions for the Music and Movie industries; and Director of the On Demand Group, a company specialising in broadcasting and new media development and management, in particular the establishment of PPV, NVOD and VOD services in the UK, Europe and Japan. Nick gained an MBA at INSEAD, has lived and worked in Spain, France, Italy the US and Japan.
Gary Carter
Gary Carter trained as an actor in South Africa, and worked as a director in the national repertory system. After moving to the UK in 1985 he worked as an agent for writers, producers and choreographers. He joined Bob Geldof's production company, Planet 24, managing their international business, their operation in Los Angeles, and was part of the team which worked on Survivor! He then joined Endemol Entertainment, the world's largest independent production company, and for five years was the Executive Director of Programmes, responsible for the global roll-out of Big Brother. He has pursued a simultaneous career as a performance artist and choreographer, and latterly as a television host in The Netherlands. Amsterdam-based, Gary is currently Chief Creative Officer, Consumer Entertainment, Freemantlemedia.
Hilary Hodgson (Vice Chair)
Following four years teaching Drama in inner London comprehensives, Hilary joined Greenwich Young People's Theatre. Here, she ran youth theatre, devised participatory theatre pieces for young people, wrote teachers' resource packs and ran in-service training for Drama teachers. In the 1990s Hilary worked as Principal Education Officer at London Arts Board, establishing training for artists in schools and youth settings and local networks for arts education. More recently, Hilary has worked as Head of Programmes at the New Opportunities Fund and is now Programme Director for Education at the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, where she has helped to set up a number of arts education initiatives. Hilary has worked freelance for organisations including the English National Ballet and the Woolwich Young Playwrights' competitions.
Bob Lockyer
Bob Lockyer spent over 40 years working at the BBC, rising to become an Executive Producer in the Classical Music Department, with responsibility for dance programming, including the Dance for Camera series. The programmes won major international awards including the Italia Prize. He reformed BBC Young Musicians, extending it beyond the popular search to find some of Britain's most talented young musicians by giving young composers and conductors the chance to work with the BBC Philharmonic and looking at music therapy and jazz. For over ten years Bob has been running workshops on dance and the camera, visiting Australia, South Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom. He was the Founder Chair of Dance UK. He also helped establish the much admired Healthier Dancer Programme that has been copied all over the world. Bob is currently Chair of South East Dance, the national dance agency, based in Brighton.
Paul Newman
Paul Newman is a Managing Director of Westwind Partners (UK) Limited, the European arm of Toronto-based investment banking group, Westwind Corporation. Paul has some twenty years' professional experience in providing corporate finance advice, including advice on capital raisings and on mergers and acquisitions, to UK small and medium-sized companies, predominantly in the listed arena. During his career he has held senior positions at ING Bank, at Charterhouse Securities, at stockbrokers Sutherlands (where, in 1996, he was a founding director of a new London office) and at Williams de Broe. His industry specialisations include housebuilding and construction, real estate and support services. Paul holds a masters degree in Science from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and a doctorate from Oxford University, where he carried out research in inorganic chemistry. His personal interests embrace the visual and performing arts, architecture and music.
Mark Phillips
Mark Phillips of Harbottle & Lewis entertainment and media law firm is a partner in the company and commercial group; head of the firm's new media group; and joint head of the e-commerce group. He has been involved with the digital and interactive media industries since the early 1980s and his practice has evolved with the development of these technologies. Principally he specialises in corporate, commercial and copyright work relating to new media and e-commerce, interactive entertainment, print and on-line publishing and the internet. Mark is recognised as a leader in the fields of interactive entertainment, the internet, e-commerce and publishing and is considered the country's leading practitioner in video games law.
Joanna Reesby
Joanna Reesby is a partner with Cheyenne Group and the Managing Director of Cheyenne's London office. Immediately prior to joining Cheyenne, Joanna was Head of Commercial Affairs with one of the UK's leading independant media companies, Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment, working in a highly entrepreneurial environment across a wide range of activities. Before joining 19. Joanna was Senior Vice President of Visual Media at Hasbro brands Inc, part of the Hasbo Property Group and publishing. Joanna was also Head of International Licensing for Hasbro International for four years. Before joining Hasbro, Joanna was in private practice in the UK for eight years, specialising in intellectual property law. Previously, Joanna had worked as a lawyer in her naitive New Zealand. Joanna has an LLB (hons) from the University of Auckland and an LLM from Cambridge University.
Louise Rice
Louise Rice is an experienced publisher, currently as Managing Director of Rodale Books International and prior to that Publishing Director Trade & Reference at Oxford University Press including print and online copyrights and the institutions of the Oxford English Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. She has worked in the UK, Australia and the US. In the nineties she was part of the dotcom revolution, with her own publishing start up in Melbourne, providing customised online textbooks to schools. She moved to San Francisco in 1999 to help set up 'BritannicaSchool', an online division of Encyclopedia Britannica. In 2001, she worked as a consultant for PAL, reviewing the business options for the Broadband Labs. She lives in London, and one day hopes to establish a PAL Lab on 'The Future of Reference'.
Colin Vaines
Colin Vaines began his career in the film industry in 1977 as a journalist with the trade paper Screen International. In 1984, he left journalism to run the UK’s National Film Development Fund, and act as consultant to parent body British Screen Finance. In 1987, he oversaw UK development for Columbia Pictures during David Puttnam’s tenure at the studio, subsequently becoming head of development for Puttnam’s own production company, Enigma, where he worked on movies including Memphis Belle. He made his debut as a producer in 1992 with the Emmy-winning TV film A Dangerous Man: Lawrence after Arabia. Vaines supervised production and development for UK lottery franchise The Film Consortium from 1997 to 1999, overseeing movies including Hideous Kinky. He was appointed executive vice-president, development for New York-based Miramax Films in 1999, becoming executive vice-president, European production and development in 2002. In recent years, he was co-executive producer of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, and executive in charge of production on Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain. In October 2005, he was appointed executive vice-president, European Production and Development, for The Weinstein Company.
PAL Directors
Architecture
Broadband
Chaos
Dance
PAL Family Film, TV and Interactive Media Labs
Food
Games
Labs of Learning
Music Theatre
Playwrights
Screenwriters
Co-director Samantha Hardingham
Samantha trained as an architect at the Architectural Association. She is a published author and has recently completed the sixth edition of London: a guide to recent architecture (Batsford/Chrysalis). Other publications include England: a guide to recent architecture (Ellipsis, 1995) and Eat London: architecture and eating (Ellipsis, 1998) and she has contributed articles to various architectural journals and national newspapers such as the Architect's Journal, Domus, Architectural Design and The Independent and was a judge on the panel for the architecture prize at the BBC Design Awards in 1997. Her most recent projects include editing Cedric Price Opera (Academy Wiley) and an appointment as research fellow in Experimental Practice at the University of Westminster.
Co-director Stefan Keuppers
Stefan Kueppers trained as an architect at Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, Oxford (1992-95) and the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (1997-1999) completing his Masters degree there in 2000. He has worked in full-time professional practice and freelance on several competitions, new-build and restoration projects in Germany, UK and Asia. He has successively specialised in design technology research in architecture and urban design, first working as researcher in the Virtual Reality Centre at the Bartlett School on the TOWER project (Collaborative group work with spatial information and presence awareness) and ARTHUR project (Augmented round table for urban planning and design). Since summer 2003 he works as research fellow at the design laboratory at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, LINST on the AGORA research project (Cities for people; www.agora.eu.com). He has particular interest in the study, organization and design of co-presence & spatial behaviour patterns in shared physical and virtual environments.
Co-director Will McLean
Will trained as an architect at the Architectural Association. He is an undergraduate and diploma tutor and senior lecturer in technical studies at the University of Westminster and was formerly a technical studies and diploma unit tutor at the Bartlett School of Architecture. His most recently completed built project is the Wonderwall at Lawthorn Primary School, Irvine, designed in collaboration with artist Bruce McLean and writer Mel Gooding and built in association with North Ayrshire Council. He is currently in the advanced stages of designing an entire primary school in that area of Scotland. Will is interested in the notion of architecture as an instrument with which to navigate and engage in the world. He considers this notion of instrument with particular reference to learning and education.
Co-director Andrew Whiting
Andrew trained as an architect at Oxford Brookes University, and the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Upon graduation he worked with the Bartlett School of Innovative Technology in collaboration with Pringle Brandon Architects. This involved the design of architectural installations to embody data into physical space with user interaction, and culminated in the construction of an 'interactive light wall' for a major European client. Andrew left Pringle Brandon in January 2003 to form Hut Architecture. The practice has to date completed a number of projects including the UK Pavilion at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, a 'timber hut on a roof' extension in Clerkenwell, an office building in Surrey, and is currently working on a range of commercial, residential, and leisure projects.
Broadband
Max Whitby
Max has produced and directed over 100 broadcast TV programmes and has also been responsible for over 100 interactive projects including websites, CD-ROMs, DVDs and museum installations. He spent ten years working at the BBC, mainly for the science department, where he directed the live Tomorrow's World studio and made numerous films for the Horizon series. He also spent a year at Thames Television as director on its major series with WGBH about the Korean War which took him to North Korea. Back at the BBC, he was a director on the landmark series People's Century and filmed and directed the BBC documentary An Island in Time. Max was closely involved in the BBC's early multimedia activities and in 1990 he co-led a management buy-out of the BBC's Interactive Television Unit. He was a founding director of the resulting Multimedia Corporation (MMC) which went on to float on the London stock exchange. MMC developed numerous award-winning interactive titles, including Sophie's World and a series for the National Gallery of Art in Washington . Max has received two BAFTA awards and been nominated four times: the BirdGuides website won in the electronic magazine category in 1999 and RGB's DNA Interactive DVD won in the factual category in 2004. Max is currently studying for a PhD in nanomaterials at ImperialCollege in London. He is chairman of Windfall Digital Ltd and he has just founded RGB research Ltd, a new company with a "real" laboratory in West London.
Fabrice Florin
With a more than 20-year track record in TV, multimedia and the Internet, Fabrice Florin has developed a wide range of leading-edge products in entertainment, education and communications. As VP of Creative Development for Macromedia, with his team Fabrice established shockwave.com as a major entertainment destination. As President of Zenda Studio, he created new user interfaces and software environments for market leaders including Compaq, Disney, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, NEC, Philips and Sony. As founding member of Apple's Multimedia Lab, Fabrice pioneered the use of multimedia and produced groundbreaking education titles with partners ranging from Lucasfilm and National Geographic to the Smithsonian.
Chaos
Susan Benn
Susan is founder director of PAL. She is a former editor and publisher and photographer. She has overall responsibility for shaping PAL's research agenda and international programme of Labs. She appoints the Directors for each of the Labs and supports the design and further development of new pilot Labs and established programmes. Susan also creates new forms of PAL Research Labs for a range of clients and is developing a sustainable structure for the wider dissemination and application of PAL models and practice.
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline Nevejan is advisor to the Institute of Computer Science of the Hogeschool of Amsterdam. She is connected with the Amsterdam School for Communication Research of the University of Amsterdam (ASCOR), where she completed her PhD research project ‘Presence and the design of trust in learning environments’. Between 2001 and 2004 she was Director of Research and Development of the University of Professional Education of Amsterdam. This research group (OrO) had the task of working with teachers and students to design and redesign learning environments in the fast changing world of higher education. Since 1995 she has been connected to PAL as an advisor and research associate, focusing on the changes for the performing arts with the rise of the influence of the digital age.
Sissel Tolaas
The Norwegian artist Sissel Tolaas lives in Berlin. She studied visual art, chemical science and mathematics at the art academies of Bergen, Warsaw, and Poznan, the universities of Oslo, Moscow and St. Petersburg and at Oslo's Royal Academy of Art and received many national and international scholarships. Sissel teaches in several academies and universities and frequently contributes to conferences. She has exhibited extensively in Europe, America and the Far East. Since 1992, Sissel has been working on smell within different art forms. Her collaborative projects include Perfume/Smell in space/architecture and projects in co-operation with Comme des Garçons, Paris. Sissel is on the board of advisors and/or consultant for Daimler Chrysler Future Lab; Nightingale Associates Ltd, London; International Flavour and Fragrance, New York; Olfactory Research Fund Ltd. New York; and the European Institute of Oncology.
Dance
Emilyn Claid
As a performer and choreographer, Emilyn Claid worked with the National Ballet of Canada and with members of the Martha Graham Company in New York in the 1960s. In the 1970/80s she was a founder member of the X6 Dance Space collective and artistic director of Extemporary Dance Company. In the 1990s Emilyn made work for companies such as Phoenix and CandoCo. In 1998, now Dr Claid, Emilyn received an Arts & Humanities Research Board fellowship. She leads the MA in choreography at University of Surrey. Her current projects include Remember to Forget, a new choreography as part of 'Embodying Ambiguities', a performance and writing project funded by AHRB; and a book, Yes? No! Maybe. Playing Presence in Dance Theatre Performance. In October 2003, Emilyn became Director of Choreography at Dartington College of Arts.
Ginette Lauren
Canadian dancer/choreographer Ginette Lauren has created over thirty dance works in her career and has been awarded many prestigious prizes. In 1984, she founded the company O Vertigo, which gained an international reputation and toured world-wide. Ginette teaches at the Université du Quebec à Montreal (UQAM) and the Tanzwerkstatt Europa in Munich.
Pru Skene CBE
Currently, Prue Skene is an Arts consultant whose recent clients have included Arts Council
England, Dance UK, and the Rayne Foundation. Prior to this, she pursued a career in Arts
management with music, theatre, and dance companies, including the English Shakespeare
Company, Ballet Rambert, and Castle Opera (1972 to 1992). She has also been a Director of
the Arts Foundation (1993 to 1998). She has served as a Member of Arts Council England
(1992 to 2000), and as a non executive director of the Royal Bath United NHS Trust (1999
to 2003). She is Chairman of Rambert Dance Company, and a Trustee of the Friends of the
V & A, and the Stephen Spender Memorial Trust.
PAL Family Film, TV and Interactive Media Labs
Jenny Thompson
Jenny Thompson has worked in television production for over 20 years as a researcher and director with Granada, Thames and Central and various Independent companies. Her programme-making experience extends across documentaries, current affairs, arts and children's programmes. After the birth of her second child she worked as a consultant to Channel 4, setting up a series of workshops for young programme-makers, and organising a C4/BFI conference, Children on Screen. She was Programme Executive for the Second World Summit on Television for Children. Jenny is Director of the PAL Labs programme for Family Film, TV and Interactive Media Labs, which includes participation in an annual European Lab Programme, PYGMALION. She also designs and directs PAL Labs for writing drama for television.
Pygmalion
Séverine Gautier
Conservatoire Européen d´Écriture Audiovisuelle, Paris
Séverine has worked in different roles in the TV and film: international sales, Marathon International; Production Assistant, Odessa Films; and Production Director, La Cinquième. She joined the CEEA in 1998 and is in charge of its European development, co-directing the PYGMALION programme since 1999.
Beate Voelcker
Master School, Drehbuch, Berlin
Beate is a media consultant at the Center of Media-Pedagogy of the Federal State of Brandenburg developing and setting up projects in film education. She also works as script consultant and developer for different development agencies and producers.
Food
Peter Gilpin
Gilpin is a Scottish socialist sociologist who spent 15 years at the chalk-face of multi-cultural London. He learned a lot from young people and used this intelevision work, mainly for American networks, attracting an Emmy for documentary. He gave up television to fulfil his dream of running a restaurant - gilpin's in Stoke Newington. He returned to TV to cook at STV, including the McTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Festival, feeding Travis, Richard Thompson, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the late, great Kirsty McColl, as well as cooking for Kirsty Wark and the Fassbinder retrospective in N.Y. Resident at Bore Place, as PAL Chef, Gilpin plays an integral part in all the Labs, as well as being Director of the Food Lab.
Game
Celia Pearce
Celia is an artist; game, interactive experience, attraction and installation designer; performer; researcher; writer; curator; lecturer, and teacher. For over nineteen years, she has been engaged in the creation and critique of interactive experiences in a variety of media and formats. She is best known for her work in theme park, "location-based entertainment," and museum industries and, more recently, for her extensive theoretical work in the area of narrative, games and spatial storytelling. Her writings include The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution, and a number of papers on interactive media and game design. She is currently the Research and External Relations Manager, Arts Layer for the UC Irvine division of the CAL(IT)2, and associate director of the UC Game Culture & Technology Lab.
Labs of Learning
Cathy Bereznicki has worked in education for the past 28 years; her specialist area is career guidance. She has worked mainly in London advising young people and adults, and their educators. She has been a trainer, lecturer and external assessor, specialising in careers guidance and in management studies.
Since 1993 she has been in a leadership role in the profession, firstly as CEO of the Institute of Career Guidance and more recently as CEO of the Guidance Council. Between those two posts she worked for three years for the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, where she says she learned much about creativity and innovation, and was able to look at the world of learning from a different perspective. She is currently a Trustee of four charities, Centrepoint Soho (for homeless young people), Company of Angels (develops writing for young audiences), the Lifelong Learning Foundation and the Addison Singers.
As PAL’s Labs of Learning Director, Cathy’s key role is to draw together the existing three separate strands of the Labs of Learning programme into a coherent and developed three-year plan which is more than the sum of the parts. We aim to grow and to share the lessons learned.
Viv Harris, PAL’s Labs of Learning Director, died of pancreatic cancer in September 2004. She brought to PAL a fierce dedication to the development of teachers’ creativity, a deceptively gentle democratic style and an enthusiasm for life that drew trust, respect and affection from all who were fortunate enough to work with her.
Always a pioneer, Viv was artistic director of the much-respected Greenwich and Lewisham Young People’s Theatre (GYPT) 1989-2000, steering it through difficult times and taking its community work to new heights. As Chair of Razor Edge, she championed the rights of people with learning difficulties to an education and career in the performing arts. Viv also ran courses in the UK, Taiwan, Germany and the Czech Republic that gave teachers and artists the confidence and skills to use participatory drama techniques in their own work and to take more creative risks in the classroom.
A proud and devoted mother, a keen singer, allotmenteer and swimmer, Viv leaves behind many people who miss her kindness, honesty and bravery. She leaves a legacy of inspiring work with PAL and the challenge for us to build upon our Labs of Learning programmes with like-minded teachers, artists, scientists and funding partners, in the years ahead.
Labs of Learning Pilot
Rachel Gibson
Rachel is a freelance arts project manager and consultant, with a wide client list, including Arts Council England, Dance UK, Sadler's Wells, the British Council, the London Borough of Southwark and the Laban Centre London. During 2000 she co-directed Catalytic Conversions, an innovative seminar series aimed at reinvigorating thinking and forging new partnerships in the dance sector.
Clown Competency
Failing... to Learn
Angela de Castro
Angela de Castro has been performing since she was seventeen, beginning in her native Brazil, where she was a well-known actress in theatre, film and television and director of her own theatre company. She moved to London in 1986 to pursue her dream to study, perform and reclaim theatre clowning as a modern art form. She has toured the UK and internationally with the major contemporary circus companies and is now well-known as a teacher of her clowning master class, How To Be A Stupid’ Angela de Castro is one of only six Dream Time Fellows at NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and is an awardee of the Arts Foundation. She is a member of the Circus Advisory Forum at Arts Council England and a juror for the Jerwood Circus Awards. She is the founder of The Why Not Institute in London, a unique organisation, dedicated to bringing together performance, teaching, professional development, events and resources connected to contemporary clowning. She teaches at the Ernest Busch School of Drama, Berlin; Queen Margaret University College Edinburgh; Royal National Theatre Studio; The Royal Shakespeare Company; Central School of Speech and Drama; and The Actors’ Centre and with businesses, education practitioners and arts organisations. She has taught and directed many theatre and circus companies in the UK, Australia and Brazil, and has on-going relationships with the National Theatre Studio, PAL and Circus Oz. Angela de Castro also creates and tours her own shows under her own company, Contemporary Clowning Projects. She toured her solo clown show, The Gift, for many years. In 2002 she toured a show based on her life, called My Life Is Like A Yo Yo, an English/ Brazilian/ Australian collaboration. Currently she is working on Only Fools, No Horses, exploring Shakespearean fools, which showed as a work-in-progress at the Riverside Studios in London in June 2003. She is also creating a major new show, Alleluia: the clown opera.
Creative Science Teaching
Steve Mesure
Steve worked as a geophysicist before joining the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1986. He studied mime and physical theatre at the City Literature Institute and, in 1987, created Floating Point Science Theatre Company to teach and promote science in schools. Since then he has written 15 shows and organised 7,000 performances throughout the UK to an audience exceeding 1.5 million children. Honours received include the Institute of Physics' Public Understanding of Physics Award and a Royal Society/British Association Millennium Award.
Music Theatre
Dominic Muldowney
As Director of Music at the Royal National Theatre (1981-97), Dominic Muldowney wrote the music for over 80 productions. He has numerous TV and film credits, together with a long list of compositions written for major British orchestras and soloists. He makes regular appearances as conductor and pianist. Muldowney's film and TV credits include The Ploughman's Lunch; Nineteen Eighty Four; Sharpe; Emma; Copenhagen and Stella Street. His orchestral music includes many concertos - a Piano Concerto for Peter Donohoe; Saxophone, John Harle; Violin, Tasmin Little; and Percussion, Evelyn Glennie. His Second Piano Concerto, written for Angela Hewitt and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was premiered in 2002, to rapturous acclaim. His radio opera, The Voluptuous Tango, won the 1997 Sony Award and the Prix Italia. His oratorio, The Fall of Jerusalem, (words by James Fenton) is due for CD release in 2004.
Robert Saxton
British composer Robert Saxton was Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (1990-97) and the Royal Academy of Music (1997-99) and, in 1999, was appointed Fellow of Music at Worcester College and Music Lecturer at the University of Oxford. He is President of The Brunel Ensemble and a director of the South Bank Centre, London. He has written works for the London Sinfonietta, London Symphony, English Chamber and London Philharmonic Orchestras, and received commissions from the BBC Proms, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh and Huddersfield Festivals.
Michael Finnissey
Michael Finnissy created the Music Department of the London School of Contemporary Dance, and has been associated as composer with many other dance companies. He has taught and lectured extensively and holds the Chair in Composition at the University of Southampton. Finnissy's works are widely performed and broadcast worldwide. His epic piano cycle, The History of Photography in Sound , the product of several years' work and lasting over five hours, was given its first complete performance in January 2001. In 1990 he was appointed President of the International Society of Contemporary Music. He was re-elected in 1993, and in 1998 was made an Honorary Member of the ISCM. He is Senior Fellow in New Music at the University of Leuven, Belgium. A work for chamber orchestra for the Beethoven Academie was premièred in 2002.
Playwrights
Bryony Lavery
Bryony Lavery is a prolific, acclaimed and award-winning playwright whose plays are performed internationally on stage and on air. Her works include A Wedding Story, Her Aching Heart, The Origin of The Species and Frozen (TMA Best New Play 1996, Eileen Anderson Award 1996 and Susan Smith Blackburn Honourable mention 2003). Her adaptations for stage include Magic Toyshop (for Shared Experience), Behind The Scenes at The Museum (York Theatre Royal) and Precious Bane (Pentabus Theatre Co.) She writes and adapts extensively for BBC Radio Drama (Wuthering Heights, Wise Children, Velma & Therese, Requiem, The Smell of Her) and has just completed her first screenplay, Restless Farewell.
John Retallack
John is the director of Company of Angels, which produces new and experimental work for young audiences. Among many other works, he wrote and directed Hannah and Hanna, which has toured widely and has been translated into several languages. His Shakespeare productions, ten in all, were widely acclaimed both in Britain and overseas. John has directed in India, America, Japan, South America, Europe and Scandinavia. Formerly founding artistic director of Actors Touring Company (1977-85.) and director of the Oxford Stage Company (1989-99), his work for both these companies toured to over twenty different countries. He has been the director of the Playwrights Labs since 1996.
Maura Dooley
From 1982-87 Maura was Centre Co-director of the Arvon Foundation's Lumb Bank. From 1987-993 she created and directed the Literature Programme for the South Bank Centre. She now works freelance, reviewing programming festivals (Rotterdam/ London: South Bank/Birmingham), carrying out research (Arts Council/Regional Arts Boards etc.) and project work.
Ben Harrison
Ben currently divides his time between directing at the Almeida Theatre in Islington and Grid Iron in Edinburgh, who are known for their experimental and intelligent work. Having trained at both Central School of Speech and Drama and the National Theatre Studio Director's Course, Ben's big break came when he was invited to be a directing tutor at PAL's Playwrights Lab. "That's where my first big success, Decky Does a Bronco was born. PAL was terribly empowering." Ben and the Grid Iron cast achieved rave reviews, The production won a Fringe First Award and also the Stage Award for Acting Award for best touring production.
Screenwriters
Corinne Cartier
Corinne Cartier has worked in the Film and TV industry for 20 years, chiefly as a development executive, most recently as a producer through Parallax Pictures. Her experience spans pop promos with Julien Temple, mainstream TV series and mini series such as the award winning Ruth Rendell Mysteries and The Story of Simon Wiesenthal; British indie features like Chris Pettit's An Unsuitable Job for a Woman; and American epics - Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. Corporate posts have included Head of Development at TVS; Production Executive for Skreba Films; Script Editor /Associate Producer at Boyds Co; and work for American companies Amblin, Marstar and Brooksfilms. She is a graduate of Bristol University Drama Department, Godolphin & Latymer School, and the Lycee Francais de Londres. Corinne has been the Director of the Screenwriters Labs since 1999.
Colin Vaines
Colin Vaines began his career in the film industry in 1977 as a journalist with the trade paper Screen International. In 1984, he left journalism to run the UK’s National Film Development Fund, and act as consultant to parent body British Screen Finance. In 1987, he oversaw UK development for Columbia Pictures during David Puttnam’s tenure at the studio, subsequently becoming head of development for Puttnam’s own production company, Enigma, where he worked on movies including Memphis Belle. He made his debut as a producer in 1992 with the Emmy-winning TV film A Dangerous Man: Lawrence after Arabia. Vaines supervised production and development for UK lottery franchise The Film Consortium from 1997 to 1999, overseeing movies including Hideous Kinky. He was appointed executive vice-president, development for New York-based Miramax Films in 1999, becoming executive vice-president, European production and development in 2002. In recent years, he was co-executive producer of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, and executive in charge of production on Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain. In October 2005, he was appointed executive vice-president, European Production and Development, for The Weinstein Company.
Nicky Singer
Nicky Singer is co-founder, with Susan Benn, of PAL. She is a novelist and TV presenter. She has worked as Associate Director of Talks at the ICA, as a researcher for Channel 4's Voices and Programme Consultant for David Puttnam at Enigma.
Stephen Cleary
Film Producer, Founder and Director of Arista Development, in the late 1980s Stephen Cleary was an independent producer and director specialising in music documentaries for the UK's Channel Four and PBS in the USA. After taking time out to write Nina Stone's autobiography, he joined British Screen in 1991. 1993-1997 he was Head of Development responsible for between 50 and 60 projects. In 1999 Stephen produced one feature New Year's Day, and co-produced another, Goodbye Charlie Bright.
PAL Associates
Caroline Nevejan - Research Associate
Caroline Nevejan is advisor to the Institute of Computer Science of the Hogeschool of Amsterdam. She is connected with the Amsterdam School for Communication Research of the University of Amsterdam (ASCOR), where she completed her PhD research project ‘Presence and the design of trust in learning environments’. Between 2001 and 2004 she was Director of Research and Development of the University of Professional Education of Amsterdam. This research group (OrO) had the task of working with teachers and students to design and redesign learning environments in the fast changing world of higher education. Since 1995 she has been connected to PAL as an advisor and research associate, focusing on the changes for the performing arts with the rise of the influence of the digital age.
A personal statement from Susan Benn, founder and director of PAL
PAL's core values haven't changed since our first Playwrights Lab in 1989. Each new Lab programme is an agent for change, kick-starting big ideas - the results make a real, practical difference to individuals and to companies.
PAL's emphasis on creative risk-taking challenges the work of talented people of all ages and backgrounds, across a wide range of disciplines. We continue to invent the safe space, research process and infrastructure which encourage and support ground-breaking, interdisciplinary exploration. Nineteen years on, with a track record of over 120 Labs involving around 3,800 people, we are actively seeking to develop the reach of our work. We are looking for ways to identify unexpected talents in people and places in the UK and also abroad. We want to discover new ways of understanding cultural diversity and of addressing, from the inside out, the problems of social exclusion.
We want to make the case for creative interdisciplinary practice as an essential ingredient in education, offering the possibility of a PAL Lab in every school, and in the initial training and continuing professional development of teachers.
Most importantly, we need to ensure decision-makers understand the need for what PAL does and that they recognise that PAL can guarantee tangible results and long-term benefit for a relatively modest investment. These are big challenges, but we are fortunate in having the support of our extensive and growing talent pool; their testimony proves that important creative developments for each one of them would not have happened without PAL as the catalyst.
We are also very lucky in having the support of many loyal people who give us their time and expertise at the Labs, on our Board of Trustees, and in an advisory and commissioning capacity in creating new research and new forms of Lab programmes with us.
The first drops of money that nurture the growth of ideas and professional practice are the most precious, the most valuable and the most rare. Our work would not have been possible without our adventurous sponsors and courageous investors of talent inside education and industry who are crucial in shaping the future of our society. We are truly grateful to each one of them, and seek new ways in which they and others can join us in sustainable partnerships for the PAL of the twenty-first century.
