Director

Jonathan Moore - Director

Jonathan recently directed two stage productions in the States, The world premiere of " Ashes and Snow/ Savage Winter" , a co-production for Pittsburgh Opera/BAM New York. This will be seen in New York in the Autumn 2018.

He also directed the revival of the opera he wrote with Stewart Copeland, " The Invention of Morel" for Long Beach Opera, the premiere being at Chicago Opera Theater.

Both productions played to ecstatic audiences and excellent reviews.

An award-winning director of Stage plays, opera, musicals, film and television. He has directed several of his own plays including "Treatment" at the Donmar and Edinburgh Festival and "Street Captives" at the Gate and Edinburgh Festival. He has a total of 19 British and world premieres to his name.

He established his reputation for directing his own new work for his New Wave theatre co, New London Actors and collaborating with leading punk and new wave musicians. His first opera was his universally acclaimed world premiere production of "Greek" (music by Mark Anthony Turnage) described as "a brilliant production from a director of real genius" (Hans Werner Henze) and "one of the finest productions of the last 25 years" (Jeremy Isaacs, while director of Royal Opera, Covent Garden), for which he also co-adapted the text. The press enthusiastically described his work as "a resounding, unanimous triumph... riveting total theatre." (The Sunday Times). Performed at the Munich Biennale, English National Opera, and Moore directed the BBC Film version, winning a Midem Award at Cannes and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Film. The opera is still regularly performed around the world.

Since then Moore has gone on on to engage audiences in Britain and throughout Europe with his "typically intense, high-octane" (The Times) world premiere productions by the world's leading contemporary composers including Schnittke, MacMillan, Nyman, Henze, Muller-Wieland, Ludovico Einaudi among many others. These were performed at a variety of the world's leading opera houses with productions at the English National Opera, the Scottish Opera, Venice's La Fenice Opera House, Opera North, Bonn Opera, Darmstadt, Almeida Opera etc.

Moore directed a "timeless and mesmerising" (The Daily Mail) production of Mozart's "Magic Flute" for Scottish Opera. A radical but loving version, it was both loved and hated by the critics, too! "This is a cracking good night of entertainment. It is big, it is bold, it is packed full of great ideas and visual gags, and it tells what is quite a complex little story very clearly." (Thom Diblin, The Evening News).

He has developed and directed the premieres of new musicals at Royal Exchange, The Muffathalle Munich , Greenwich Theatre and Soho Theatre.

Prior to (and alongside) his opera work, Moore has also collaborated on new work with the acclaimed young Violinist Daniel Hope and The great jazz pianist Uri Caine, as well as rock musicians Killing Joke (Youth and Ben Watkins going on to compose and perform the sound track album for Moore's play "Street Captives"), the late Joe Strummer, Jah Wobble, Stewart Copeland and the industrial percussionists Test Dept. He has also worked with Japanese master percussionist Stomu Yamashta in Japan and with reggae legend Eddy Grant in Barbados.

He directed another world premiere of a community jazz opera about the black baseball leagues, "Shadowball" by Julian Joseph, with a cast including 120 children from London's East End.

He went on to direct the world premiere of a new play "Faith and Cold Reading" starring Stephen Tompkinson for Live Theatre, Newcastle (whose "Pitmen Painters" by Lee Hall transferred to National Theatre and Broadway).

He then directed the world premiere of a new opera by Stewart Copeland "Tell Tale Heart" (Linbury, Royal Opera, Covent Garden). "Brilliantly staged by Jonathan Moore," Tom Sutcliffe - The Independent.

He directed a controversial production of "The Revenger's Tragedy" at the Royal Exchange (Critics Choice - The Independent, Pick of The Week - The Guardian. Read more reviews here).

Jonathan was asked by Mark Rylance to direct a large scale Shakespeare project for Shakespeare's Globe, Cultural Olympiad, London 2012 Festival and The Mayor's Office.

"What You Will" was a pop up Shakespeare series of happenings that involved a cast of 50 actors led by Mark Rylance mingling with members of the public in contemporary dress and delivering Shakespeare conversationally to them in secret landmark venues all over London. It was widely regarded as one of the hits of the Festival.

Following the success of "What you Will", Mark Rylance subsequently asked Jonathan to direct the Sonnet Walks for Shakespeare's Globe in 2013 and again in 2014.

He is currently preparing a feature film project, a new Opera , and a new stage play.