Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 7 The Light in the Piazza

Lyric Opera House | 28 JOHN BERRY PRODUCER John Berry CBE is Co-Director of Scenario Two Ltd, a new commercial theater company that will focus on producing musicals, beginning with this production of The Light in the Piazza. He trained as a professional clarinet player at the Royal Northern College of Music. He founded the Brereton Symposium in 1990 for aspiring professional musicians, building an international faculty that included Thomas Hampson, Birgit Nilsson and Shirley Verrett. As advisor for the BBC and Channel 4, he collaborated on many opera projects, including the award-winning film version of the opera The Death of Klinghoffer, directed by Penny Woolcock. He was Artistic Director of ENO from 2005-15 and created more than 100 new productions, including the sold-out 2015 production of Sweeney Todd with Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel. His multi Olivier Award-winning work included engaging directors new to opera, including Simon McBurney, Fiona Shaw, Terry Gilliam and Mike Leigh, and his co-producing model with the Metropolitan Opera and other major houses changed the landscape for collaboration in opera around the world. He founded Opera Ventures in 2016, an opera charity producing contemporary opera in collaboration with opera houses and festivals throughout the globe. His first project, in collaboration with Scottish Opera, Edinburgh International Festival and BAM in New York, was a highly acclaimed production of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek. His next project, Breaking the Waves by Missy Mazzoli, opened at the Edinburgh International Festival in August and then travels to New York City, Adelaide, Paris and Houston. He is advisor to the Bolshoi and Vienna Staatsoper. ANTHONY LILLEY PRODUCER Anthony Lilley OBE is a co-founder with John Berry CBE of Scenario Two Ltd. He has worked extensively across the creative industries, beginning in theater before founding Magic Lantern Productions, one of the UK ’s earliest specialist digital content companies. He has produced TV, web, mobile, theater, games, opera and advertising projects including brands such as Top Gear and Doctor Who and for clients including BBC, C4, Sony Playstation, CCTV China and ABC. He has won BAFTA, RTS and Peabody awards in the field of digital innovation. His first love, however, has always been the arts where he has worked with Ai Wei Wei, Terry Gilliam, James Graham and many others. Anthony met John Berry while serving as a trustee of English National Opera and their decision to set up Scenario Two grew out of their work there on musical theater projects. Anthony is a trustee of NESTA and the Crafts Council and chairs the Board of Blast Theory. He holds a personal Professorship in Creative Industries at the University of Ulster and is a Council Member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council where he was instrumental in establishing the £85m creative industries clusters program. KARL SYDOW PRODUCER Productions include Sting’s The Last Ship (featuring Sting) in Toronto and on tour in the U.S., UK & Ireland, Sweat by Lynn Nottage at the Gielgud Theatre, Invisible Cities with 59 Productions at MIF, Nigel Slater’s Toast in London and UK tour, Alan Ayckbourn’s The Divide with the Old Vic and Edinburgh International Festival and David Hare’s The Moderate Soprano at the Duke of York’s Theatre, Sketchings by James Graham at Wilton’s Music Hall. He has produced Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story Live on Stage across the UK and around the world since 2004, and Red Joan, a film featuring Dame Judi Dench which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Other credits in the UK include Paul Auster’s City of Glass with 59 Productions, Sinatra: The Man and His Music directed by David Gilmore, Backbeat directed by David Leveaux, the centennial production of Under Milk Wood and Memory, directed by Terry Hands, Dish of Tea with Dr Johnson directed by Max Stafford-Clark; Triptych by Edna O’Brien, The Line directed by Matthew Lloyd and Jenufa directed by Irina Brown, both written by Timberlake Wertenbaker (Arcola), Ring Round the Moon at The Playhouse, the spectacular multimedia production Sinatra at the London Palladium, And Then There Were None with Tara Fitzgerald (Gielgud); the London and Sydney production of Dance of Death with Sir Ian McKellen, Frances de la Tour and Owen Teale, Auntie and Me with Alan Davies and Margaret Tyzack (Wyndham’s), Michael Moore, Live! (Roundhouse); Noël Coward’s Semi-Monde, Kevin Elyot’s Mouth to Mouth (Albery), David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow with Mark Strong, Drummers by Simon Bennet and Some Explicit Polaroids by Mark Ravenhill both directed by Max Stafford-Clark, Macbeth with Rufus Sewell (Queen’s), A Swell Party: A Celebration of Cole Porter (Vaudeville), Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good (Olivier Award for Best Play), Hysteria (Olivier Award for Best Comedy) and an adaptation of Sue Townsend’s novel The Queen and I that was Out of Joint’s inaugural production. In North America he has produced Happy Days with Fiona Shaw at BAM and The Seagull, All My Sons and American Buffalo on Broadway, as well as Backbeat (Royal Alexandra, Toronto and at the Ahmanson), international tours including The Last Confession with David Suchet, and the original Broadway production and the Out of Joint revival of Our Country’s Good.