Tao of Glass

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, the USA, Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and, while there, earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation. By 1974, Glass had a number of innovative projects creating a large collection of new music for The Philip Glass Ensemble and for the Mabou Mines Theatre Company. This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts and the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, for which he collaborated with Robert Wilson. Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Glass’s memoir Words Without Music was published by Liveright Books in 2015.

Glass received the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the U.S. National Medal of the Arts from the then President Barack Obama in 2016, and 41st Kennedy Center Honors in 2018. Glass’s recent works include a circus opera Circus Days and Nights, Symphony No. 13 and Symphony No 14. Glass celebrated his 85th birthday in 2022 with a season of international programming.

A founder member of Improbable and the company’s co-artistic director. 

In addition to Tao Of Glass, Improbable credits include 70 Hill Lane, Lifegame, Animo, Coma, Spirit, Sticky, Cinderella, The Hanging Man and Theatre of Blood (in collaboration with the National Theatre); Panic and Beauty and the Beast (a co-production with ONEOFUS), The Tempest (a co-production with Northern Stage and Oxford Playhouse); Opening Skinners Box (a co-production with Northern Stage and West Yorkshire Playhouse); Lost Without Words (a co-production with National Theatre); and My Neighbour Totoro (Royal Shakespeare Company and Nippon TV at Barbican Centre).

Opera credits with Improbable include Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (English National Opera, Los Angeles Opera); The Perfect American, the Olivier Award-winning Akhnaten, Mozart’s Così fan tutte (English National Opera and Metropolitan Opera, New York); Aida (English National Opera); BambinO, an opera for babies (originally co-produced with Manchester International Festival and Scottish Opera, now with Los Angeles Opera); and The Hours (Metropolitan Opera).

Other productions as director include the Olivier Award-winning Shockheaded Peter and Alex (The Arts Theatre); The Ghost Downstairs (Leicester Haymarket); Dr Faustus and Improbable Tales (Nottingham Playhouse); The Servant of Two Masters, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Government Inspector (West Yorkshire Playhouse); and being the Artistic Collaborator on She’s Leaving Home (produced by 20 Stories High).

In 2003, McDermott was awarded a National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) fellowship to research new ways of rehearsing and creating theatre using improvisation and process-oriented conflict facilitation techniques. As part of this work, he has facilitated many Open Space Technology events. He was made an Honorary Doctor of Middlesex University in 2007. In 2023, McDermott was awarded the Distinguished Artist Award by International Society of Performing Arts.

A director, writer and dramaturg, Housley has won the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award and the Title Pending Award for Innovation at Northern Stage. In 2017, she won The Stage Award for Innovation for The Encounter, and was nominated again in 2018 for The Believers Are But Brothers.

Current and future works include Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran (cocreated with Javaad Alipoor; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh); Avalanche: A Love Story (dramaturg; Sydney Theatre); and Mephisto {Rhapsodie} (The Gate Theatre).

Other theatre works include The Encounter (co-director with Simon McBurney; Complicité); I’m a Phoenix, Bitch (with Bryony Kimmings); Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales (Unicorn Theatre); Misty (dramaturg; Bush Theatre & West End Theatre); The Distance (Round House Theatre); The Believers Are But Brothers (co-director; Bush Theatre, Oval House Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Northern Stage Edinburgh); Myth (co-writer; Royal Shakespeare Company); A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer (dramaturg for Complicité at the National Theatre and Homer Theatre; director for international tour); Wanted and 9 (Chris Goode and Company, Transform Festival and West Yorkshire Playhouse); Walking the Tightrope (Offstage Theatre and Theatre Uncut); All I Want (Live Theatre Newcastle, Leeds Libraries and Jacksons Lane Arts Centre); Mass (Bristol Old Vic Theatre and Camden People’s Theatre); The Beauty Project (Theatre Uncut and Young Vic Theatre); How to Be Immortal (Penny Dreadful Productions at Soho Theatre and tour); Bandages (Corn Exchange Newbury and tour); and Thirsty (The Paper Birds and Blue Jam for Etcetera).

Directing Opera for over 25 years, Relton was the Associate Director with Phelim McDermott for the world premiere of The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera. He has a long-term working relationship with McDermott that has lasted since 2007 including remounts of Akhnaten (Metropolitan Opera) and Satyagraha (Los Angeles Opera).

Other directing credits include La Boheme, Nabucco, Die Fledermaus, The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, The Pearl Fishers and La Voix Humaine. He directed Tosca to open the new theatre for Grange Park Opera, and has recently revived Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House.

Remounts directed include Sir David McVicar’s production of Rigoletto (Royal Opera House); Fiona Shaw’s production of The Marriage of Figaro and Sir Jonathan Miller’s production of The Barber of Seville (English National Opera). Relton also transferred the production of Fiddler on the Roof into the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms. As a staff director, he has worked for The Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and companies across Europe. 

Davis’s credits as designer include Caroline, or Change (Chichester Festival Theatre and West End Theatre; Olivier Award nomination for Best Costume Design); Pericles and I Want My Hat Back (National Theatre); Beginning (National Theatre and West End Theatre); Macbeth (Royal Shakespeare Company and Barbican Centre); The Hour That We Knew Nothing of Each Other and The Winter’s Tale (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh); The Prudes, Pigeons and Primetime (Royal Court Theatre); Othello (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre); A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Our Town, A Streetcar Named Desire, Scuttlers, Hunger for Trade, Nothing and How Our Light Is Spent (Royal Exchange Theatre); Barbarians, Trade, A Streetcar Named Desire and Turning a Little Further (Young Vic Theatre); The Last Remains of Maisie Duggan (National Theatre Ireland); The Glass Menagerie (Headlong Theatre, UK tour); Opera for the Unknown Woman (Fuel Theatre, UK tour); James and the Giant Peach (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Dissidents (Kiln Theatre); Contractions (Crucible Theatre); The Crocodile (Manchester International Festival); I’d Rather Goya Robbed Me of My Sleep Than Some Other Arsehole (Gate Theatre); Image of an Unknown Young Woman (The Off West End Theatre Award for Best Set Design; Gate Theatre) and Dealing with Clair (Orange Tree Theatre). Costume design credits include Unreachable (Royal Court Theatre) and Shipwreck (Almeida Theatre).

Grenfell’s credits for Improbable include Lost Without Words, Theatre of Blood and Lifegame  (National Theatre); The Hanging Man, 70 Hill Lane, Coma, The Paper Man, Spirit, Animo, Beauty and the Beast, Panic, No Idea, Still No Idea and The Tempest (UK and international).

Credits for the Royal Exchange Theatre include Kes, Separate Tables and The Cherry Orchard (also Bristol Old Vic Theatre). Other theatre credits include Tamburlaine (Royal Shakespeare Company); Black Watch, The Bacchae, 365, Men Should Weep and Granite (National Theatre of Scotland); The Village Social (National Theatre of Wales); The Caretaker (Liverpool Playhouse Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Adelaide Festival and West End Theatre); The Mother, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Half Life, Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, Christmas Eve and The Omission of the Family Coleman (Theatre Royal, Bath); Stevie (Chichester Festival Theatre); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Theatr Clwyd; Wales Theatre Award for Best Lighting); The Elephant Man (Dundee Repertory Theatre; CATS Award for Best Lighting); and The Hanging Man (West Yorkshire Playhouse; TMA Award for Best Design).

Thomas’s credits as sound designer and composer include Macbeth (Unifaun Theatre, Malta); Grimm Tales (Unicorn Theatre); Cock and Plenty (Chichester Festival Theatre); Henry V and Othello (Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol); Othello (English Touring Theatre); Death of a Salesman (Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton); How My Light Is Spent (Royal Exchange Theatre); Wish List and Yen (Royal Exchange Theatre and Royal Court Theatre); Contractions (Crucible Theatre); I See You, Wolf from the Door, Primetime, Mint, Pigeons, Death Tax and The President Has Come To See You (Royal Court Theatre); Pomona (National Theatre, Royal Exchange Theatre and Orange Tree Theatre); and Outside Mullingar (Theatre Royal, Bath).

Other sound design credits include A Streetcar Named Desire (Nuffield Southampton Theatres); The Almighty Sometimes (Royal Exchange Theatre); Hijabi Monologues (Bush Theatre); Disco Pigs (Trafalgar Studios and Irish Repertory Theatre); What Shadows (Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Park Theatre); They Drink It in the Congo (Almeida Theatre); The Snow Queen (Nuffield Southampton Theatres and Royal and Derngate Theatre); Betrayal: a polyphonic crime drama (I Fagiolini, UK tour); Khandan (Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Royal Court Theatre); It’s About Time (Nabokov Theatre and Hampstead Theatre); Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (Royal Court Theatre, Gate Theatre, Out of Joint Theatre, Paines Plough and National Theatre); and House of Agnes (Paines Plough).

A multi-instrumentalist originally from upstate New York. After a freelancing stint in Brooklyn, Vatalaro joined Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra as a drummer, performing hundreds of concerts worldwide. Settling the UK in 2006, Vatalaro then toured with Mark Ronson, and has accompanied artists ranging from Imogen Heap to Sam Amidon. In recent years, he has played with Anohni, Philip Selway of Radiohead, Jarvis Cocker, Colin Stetson, Beth Orton, Jessie Buckley, Brian Eno and Karl Hyde. Vatalaro has been featured in Modern Drummer magazine, and can be heard on the soundtrack to the film Wild Rose and Yesterday.