Tayo Aluko. Writer, performer
Tayo was born in Nigeria in 1962 and is based in Liverpool, where he worked
as an architect and property developer, with a special interest in eco-friendly
construction. As a baritone, he has appeared as guest soloist with a number
of orchestras, music societies, choirs and brass bands in the UK, Germany
Ireland and Nigeria. He was once soloist at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester,
accompanied by the Hallé Orchestra
for the anthem of the Annual Co-Operative Congress. He has performed lead
roles in various operas and stage musicals including Nabucco, Kiss Me Kate
and Anything Goes.
His rendition of GO DOWN, MOSES, recorded on his CD titled RECALLING ROBESON, is featured as the song of the month for July 2008 on the US-based Labor Notes website.
Tayo has contributed a number of articles to newspapers in the UK, including The Guardian, The North West Enquirer and Nerve Magazine. He has also had a short story published in MERSEY MINIS - a collection of writings about Liverpool across the centuries.
CALL MR ROBESON was premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2007 to rave reviews and sell-out houses. He has gone on to win the coveted Argus Angel Award for Artistic Excellence, Best Male Performer Award, and a nomination for the Best Show, at the Brighton Festival Fringe in May 2008. He has performed the play around the UK and to audiences on both coasts of the United States of America, and in Toronto. He will shortly be performing it at home in Lagos, Nigeria, and in Teaneck, New Jersey, it was the first play to be selected for a SoloFest in January 2009, prior to performances in California and the East Coast in February.
Olusola Oyeleye. Director, Dramaturg
Olusola is a writer, director, performer and producer. She works across a
wide spectrum of arts genres: opera, music theatre and dance. She has directed
productions for Adzido Pan African Dance Company at the Royal Festival Hall
and has collaborated with dancers and musicians; she has also worked extensively
in education, both as a writer-in-residence and visiting lecturer/artist.
Olusola was the resident director on Trevor Nunn’s production of George
Gershwin's musical Porgy and Bess. She has the distinction of being English
National Opera’s first black staff director Other UK theatre credits
as director include Don Kinch’s Scenarios, and Anita Franklin’s
The Resurrection of Roscoe Powell at Soho Theatre. The Playground at Polka
Theatre, which was Time Out 'Pick of the Year' 2004. Olusola has also worked
in prestigious productions abroad, including Akin Euba’s Orunmila’s
Voices: Songs from the Beginning of Time in New Orleans, Chaka: An Opera in
Two Chants in St Louis, Missouri, also by Akin Euba, and the British Council’s
Write a Story initiative in Ghana. She has directed Twelfth Night for a British
Council Tour of Zimbabwe. As a writer her poetry has been set to music by
Akin Euba and performed at Harvard University and Cambridge University. She
directed The Shelter for the RSC Early Stages Festival at the Barbican Theatre
and Medea at the Royal National Theatre Studio. She was the judge for the
BBC World Service African Theatre competition 2007. Olusola is the executive
director of Bush Boy Productions and an associate producer with Collective
Artistes. Forthcoming productions include High Life, a play on teenage suicide.
Phil Newman, Designer, Assistant Director
Call Mr Robeson is Phil’s sixth collaboration with director Olusola Oyeleye; other productions have included Coming Up For Air (The Drum, Birmingham & RichMix, London), Tales from the Underground (Arcola Theatre), The Playground (Time Out Critics Choice/Polka Theatre, London) and the acclaimed Ma Joyce’s Tales from the Parlour (Oval House Theatre, London).
Phil’s Set & Costume Design credits also include: The Fiddler (Unicorn Theatre, London), national open-air tours of The Merchant of Venice and The Railway Children (Heartbreak Productions), The Lost Thing (Impetuous Kinship), and devised interactive projects for Ladder to the Moon and Trestle Theatre. He also designed the internationally-acclaimed production of John Retallack’s Hannah & Hanna (Time Out Critics Choice) which toured extensively in the UK and abroad between 2001 and 2005.
Since 2000, Phil has designed ten community tours for Chalkfoot Theatre Arts including The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, The Phoenix & the Carpet, The Sea Morgan’s Child and The Riddle of the Sands, as well as their open-air Taming of the Shrew in 2006.
Other credits include: Costume Design for national tours of Lifting the Mask and Black Atlas (London Shakespeare Workout), The Marathon Makers (Cordial Productions) and The Dutch Courtesan (Wimbledon Studio); also Set Design/Construction for Urashima Taro (Rouge28 Theatre), Cinderella (Tickled Pink Productions), The Last Dance (Full House Theatre) and 14 productions at Leicester’s Little Theatre.
His designs were recently seen in Briony Lavery’s Stockholm at Battersea Arts Centre in mid-June and Laurel & Hardy at London’s Jermyn Street Theatre in July.
Phil trained at Croydon College, where he also enjoyed three years as Practitioner-in-Residence in their Theatre Design department.
Call Mr Robeson: Winner, Angel Award for Artistic Excellence.
Nominee, Best Show.
Tayo Aluko: Winner, Best Male Performer.
Brighton Festival Fringe, May 2008.
