Tayo Aluko. Writer, Performer, Producer. Tayo was born in Nigeria, and now lives in Liverpool. He worked until recently as an architect and property developer, with a special but as yet frustrated interest in eco-friendly construction. As a baritone, he has sung as soloist in British concert halls accompanied by orchestra, and has also sung in Germany, Ireland and Nigeria. He has performed lead roles in such operas and musicals as Nabucco, Kiss Me Kate and Anything Goes. CALL MR ROBESON won the Argus Angel Award for Artistic Excellence and Best Male Performer Award at the 2008 Brighton Festival Fringe, and two Merit Awards for Excellence in London in 2010. He has performed the play around the UK, the United States of America, Canada and Nigeria, and will be performing at New York’s Carnegie Hall in February 2012 for his 50th birthday. His other piece titled FROM BLACK AFRICA TO THE WHITE HOUSE: a talk about Black Political Resistance, illustrated with Spirituals has also been performed in three continents. He researched, wrote and narrated to camera a piece on West African History before the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, which forms part of the permanent exhibit at Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum. A song from his CD, RECALLING ROBESON is featured as the July 2008 song of the month on the Labor Notes website.
Olusola Oyeleye, Director and Dramaturge. Olusola is an award winning writer, director and producer working in opera, music theatre, visual arts and dance. Theatre includes: Tin (The Lowry), Ti-Jean and his Brothers (Collective Artistes & Sustained Theatre, Cottesloe), Resident director on Trevor Nunn’s West End production of Porgy and Bess (Savoy Theatre), staff producer at English National Opera, Spirit of Okin and Sankofa for Adzido Pan African Dance Ensemble, (National & International tours), the award-winning Call Mr Robeson (UK tours, New York Fringe & Carnegie Hall), Coming Up For Air (The Drum & UK tour), The Resurrection of Roscoe Powell (Soho Theatre), The Shelter (RSC Barbican Theatre), Medea (Ariya, Royal National Theatre Studio), The Playground (Polka Theatre, Time Out Critics’ Choice Pick of the Year), High Life, (Hampstead Theatre), Maybe Father, (Talawa, Young Vic),Twelfth Night (British Council Tour, Zimbabwe) and Ella, a monodrama about Ella Fitzgerald (Rich Mix). Opera includes: Akin Euba’s Orunmila’s Voices: Songs from the Beginning of Time (Jefferson’s Arts Centre, New Orleans) and Chaka: An Opera in Two Chants with the St. Louis African Chorus, Dido and Aeneas (Tricycle/BAC), God's Trombones (Fairfield Halls) and the second cast revival of Jonathan Miller's production of The Mikado (English National Opera). Olusola has also worked in Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Hungary and the Czech Republic. She has been a visiting lecturer and Artist at Witswatersrand University, Johannesburg and CENCE, University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa; Goldsmith's and Middlesex Universities, London and was Head of the Acting Studio at Morley College. Her poetry has been set to music by Akin Euba and performed at both Harvard and Cambridge Universities. She is artistic director of Ariya, associate producer for Collective Artistes and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.
Phil Newman, Designer and Assistant Director/Dramaturg Phil’s
Set and Costume designs have featured in productions by companies such as
Ladder to the Moon, Trestle Theatre, Chalkfoot Theatre Arts, London Shakespeare
Workout, Rouge28 Theatre, Heartbreak Productions and Impetuous Kinship. Recent
design credits include the acclaimed Laurel & Hardy (Jermyn Street Theatre,
London and forthcoming UK tour), Faith Drama's forthcoming production, Next
Door at the Cockpit Theatre, London, Yes, I Still Exist (Spread Expression
Dance), Stockholm (BAC, London), Full House Theatre’s national tour
of Hansel and Gretel (incl. Greenwich Theatre), a musical version of The Famous
Five (Tabard Theatre, London), Xmas Reloaded (Old Red Lion Theatre, London)
and Chalkfoot’s recent production of The Riddle of the Sands at Jermyn
Street, The Playground (Time Out Critics' Choice/Polka Theatre, London), High
Life (Hampstead Theatre, London), Coming Up For Air (UK tour) and Ma Joyce’s
Tales from the Parlour (Oval House, London and at Edinburgh Fringe 2010),
Full House Theatre's Cinderella at the Library Theatre, Luton, and Queen Elizabeth’s
Elephant for Chalkfoot Theatre. Forthcoming shows include Voices in the Alleyway
at Cochran Theatre, London.
Call Mr Robeson: Winner, Angel Award for Artistic Excellence.
Nominee, Best Show.
Tayo Aluko: Winner, Best Male Performer.
Brighton Festival Fringe, May 2008.
