People: The Company

Mike Alfreds, Katie Mitchell OBE, Ian Rickson

Sarah Broughton, Simon Groves, Bruce Harris, Sian Mile, Pennant Roberts (in memorium)

Simon Allen

Robert Bowman - Joint Artistic Director

He began his career at Ireland's National Theatre - The Abbey - and went on to work at the Gate Theatre as part of Stephen Daldry's award winning season of foreign plays where he was later nominated for a Carling Fringe Theatre Best Actor Award for his role in The Crackwalker. He has worked as an actor in over thirty professional productions including Eric in An Inspector Calls (RNT/Tour), Mali in Haroun and the Sea of Stories (RNT), Sebastian in Twelfth Night, Mr Friendall in The Wive's Excuse and Ithocles in The Broken Heart (RSC). He was a member of the Young Vic Ensemble playing numerous roles in Grimm Tales and More Grimm Tales, Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors (RSC/YV), Cash in As I Lay Dying and Malvolio in Twelfth Night. After taking a year out to study directing he went back to the RNT in Ted Hughes' version of The Orestia and The Royal Court in Rebecca Gilman's Spinning into Butter. He then went on to play Ranger in William Wycherley's Love in a Wood and Roman in David Edgar's The Prisoner's Dilemma (2001/2002 RSC Season), Dr. Lvov at The Royal National in Ivanov and Kurt in Living Pictures' production of The Nest directed by Elen Bowman. Most recent theatre includes Reverend Hale in Dominic Cooke's production of The Crucible (RSC/Geilgud Theatre) and the title role in Cyrano De Bererac at the Bristol Old Vic, Sherman Cymru’s highly successful Deep Cut (Edinburgh Fringe/Tricycle Theatre) and Pavel in Athol Fugard's A Place with the Pigs (Living Pictures/Sherman Cymru).

Directing work includes co-director Andromache (Living Pictures), Macbeth (Ways and Means TC), The Memory of Water (RSC Fringe) in Stratford/London and a workshop at the RNT Studio of Robin Hooper's The Anatomy Lesson. Since 2004 he has directed Robin Hooper's Free from Sorrow (Living Pictures), The Seagull, Ghosts (Bristol Old Vic), Small Family Business and The Seagull (RWCMD) and The Blue Room (Ustinov Studio, Bath Theatre Royal), Caucasian Chalk Circle (Trinity, Carmarthen) and Miss Julie (Living Pictures).

He was Artistic Associate at the Bristol Old Vic for 2007 and he was given an Arts Council Wales Grant to use his time at Bristol Old Vic as a training opportunity to further his skills as an Artistic Director.

He was also given an individual training grant from Arts Council Wales to study the Michael Chekhov Technique with Sinead Rushe in July 2010.

Robert teaches BA acting at University of Wales, Carmarthen.

Elen Bowman - Joint Artistic Director

Elen trained at RADA and has worked with companies such as Shared Experience and the RNT as an actress. She went on to train as a director, studying a three year course of a contemporised version of the Stanislavsky technique at the School of the Science of Acting. She then assisted director Mike Alfreds with his company Method & Madness. Also during this time, Elen taught directing methods to directors at the Royal Court Theatre and became a personal tutor to Katie Mitchell, Ian Rickson and others. Elen's work has formed part of 'The directors's Craft' written by Katie Mitchell.

Since 2002, Elen has been an Associate Director at Sgript Cymru and her production of Amdani won the Theatre in Wales Best stage production award 2003. She is now an Artistic Associate at Sherman Cymru Theatre in Cardiff for whom she directed Gary Owen's new play Amgen : Broken.

For the National Theatre of Wales inaugural year Elen directed The Devil Inside him by John Osborne at the New Theatre Cardiff in 2010.

She has two Welsh BAFTA nominations. The first in 2002 for her short film 'What?', and the other in 2006 for A470, a twelve part series which she produced and co-directed for ITV Wales.

Elen regularly mentors directors in Cardiff and London.

Tom Hughes - Project Manager for Directors Acting 2011

Tom is a director and theatre maker. His directing credits include: 'Tape' by Stephen Belber (Warwick Student Arts Festival), 'The Great Irish Elk' by Henry Martin (Theatre503, short) and 'Zoo Meat' by Timothy Franklin (One Night Stands rehearsed reading). He has worked as assistant director on 'Bronte' (Shared Experience / Oxford Playhouse UK tour 2011), 'Wild Horses' (Theatre503'), 'Bronte' (Shared Experience / Watermill Theatre 2010) and 'Three Minute Hero' (Cock Tavern Theatre).

Tom holds a PhD in Film and Television Studies from the University of Warwick. He has been training as a director with Living Pictures and the Young Vic Genesis Project, including workshops with Katie Mitchell, Elen Bowman, Carrie Cracknell, Dominic Cooke and Roxana Silbert.