PRODUCTION BIOGRAPHIES RICHARD EYRE (Director) Richard Eyre’s feature films include The Ploughman’s Lunch, Iris and Notes on a Scandal. His films for the BBC include “The Imitation Game,” “Country,” “Past Caring,” “The Insurance Man,” “Tumbledown,” “Suddenly Last Summer,” “King Lear” and “Henry IV Parts 1 and 2.” He was producer of “Play for Today” from 1978 to 1980 and a Governor of the BBC from 1995 to 2003. He was Director of the National Theatre from 1988 – 1997 where his productions included “Comedians,” “Guys and Dolls,” “The Beggar’s Opera,” “Hamlet,” “Racing Demon” (also on Broadway), “Richard III” (also world tour), “Night of the Iguana,” “Sweet Bird of Youth,” “Skylight” (also on Broadway), “Napoli Milionaria,” “John Gabriel Borkman,” “Amy’s View” (also on Broadway), “King Lear” and “The Invention of Love.” Since then his work includes the musicals “Mary Poppins” (also on Broadway), “Betty Blue Eyes,” “The Pajama Game,” “Private Lives” (also on Broadway), “The Crucible” (on Broadway), his own adaptations of “Hedda Gabler and Ghosts” at the Almeida Theatre and later in the West End; and, at the National Theatre, “Vincent in Brixton” (also on Broadway), “The Reporter,” “The Observer,” and “Liolà.” He has directed “La Traviata” at Covent Garden, “Manon Lescaut” in Baden-Baden, and “Carmen,” “Werther” and “Le Nozze di Figaro” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He has published four books, his most recent called “What Do I Know: People, Politics and the Arts.” He has received many theatre, film and TV awards including six Olivier Awards, four Evening Standard Awards, three Critics Circle Awards, a Tony® Award and a BAFTA®. He was knighted in 1997 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. RONALD HARWOOD (Playwright) Ronald Harwood’s many plays include “The Dresser,” “Taking Sides,” “Quartet,” “Mahler’s Conversion,” “An English Tragedy” and “Collaboration.” His films include The Dresser (Academy Award® Nomination for Best Screenplay), Taking Sides (XXIX Flaiano Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay), The Pianist (Palme d’Or, 2002 Cannes Film Festival and 2003 BAFTA® for Best Film), Being Julia, Oliver Twist and, most recently, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (winner of the 2008 BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay, Academy Award Nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and Humanitas Prize 2008, Writers’ Guild Award for Best Screenplay, Prix Jacques Prevert du Scenario 2008), and Love in the Time of Cholera. His latest film Quartet, released on January 1, 2013, is adapted from his play and is directed by Dustin Hoffman. Harwood’s awards for The Pianist include the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay 2003, the National Society of Film Critics’ Award for Best Screenplay and the Founders’ Award from the Zaki Gordon Institute for Independent Filmmaking. He was also nominated for a BAFTA (Best Adapted Screenplay) and a César (Best Screenplay). He was made Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1974 and was Visitor in Theatre at Balliol College, Oxford in 1985. He was President of English PEN, 1989-1993, President of International PEN, 1993-97, and Chairman of the Royal Society of Literature. In 1996, he was appointed Chevalier de l’ordre National des Arts et des Lettres. In 1999, he was appointed a CBE. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Keele University in 2002 and Aberdeen University in 2013. He is President of the Royal Literary Fund 2005-present. He was made an Honorary Fellow of Central School of Speech and Drama in 2006. He was knighted for Services to Drama in the 2010 Queen’s Birthday honours list. He received the National Jewish Theatre Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. COLIN CALLENDER (Executive Producer) Colin Callender is a Tony® and Emmy® award-winning television, film and theater producer who founded the New York and London-based production company Playground in 2012. Callender began his career as stage manager at London’s Royal Court Theatre working with David Hare and Sam Sheppard. He won his first Emmy® for the television adaptation of the RSC’s “Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.” Under the Playground banner, Callender has executive produced over 50 hours of prime time television drama garnering 13 Emmy nominations and 11 Golden Globe® nominations and produced five Broadway plays, winning a Tony along the way. Most recent productions include the critically acclaimed thriller “The Missing,” starring James Nesbitt and Francis O’Connor for the BBC and STARZ, and the miniseries “Wolf Hall” for the BBC and Masterpiece starring Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, Jonathan Pryce and Claire Foy, which was nominated for three Golden Globes and eight Emmys including Outstanding Limited Series. On the theater front, Callender’s first outing as a producer was the 2013 Tony® nominated Broadway production of Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, directed by George C. Wolfe and starring Tom Hanks making his New York stage debut. Other productions include Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina, directed by Joe Mantello, Ken Branagh’s New York debut in Macbeth by Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh, and Jez Butterworth’s The River, starring Hugh Jackman. Currently running on Broadway is the Tony winning “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” for which Callender won a Tony for Best Musical Revival. Callender is also producing, alongside Sonia Friedman Productions and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions, “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child,” a new play by Jack Thorne, based on an original story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. Prior to Playground, Callender was the long-running president of HBO Films, responsible for an array of award winning films and mini-series including Mike Nichol’s “Angels in America,” starring Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, Tom Hooper’s “John Adams” and Gus van Sant’s Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or winner “Elephant.” Under Callender’s leadership, HBO Films garnered an unprecedented 104 Emmy® Awards, 29 Golden Globes, 9 Peabody Awards®, 12 Humanitas Awards, 3 Oscars®, and top awards at the Sundance Film Festival four years in a row. Callender is a Trustee of the New York Public Theater and the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He is the winner of the WGA 54th Evelyn F. Burkey Award for services to writers, the Humanitas Award and the Geffen Distinction in Theater Award. In 2003, Callender was awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Her Majesty the Queen for services to the UK film and television industries in the US. SONIA FREEMAN (Executive Producer) Sonia Friedman Productions (SFP) is a West End and Broadway production company responsible for some of the most successful theatre productions in London and New York over the past decade. Since 1990, SFP has developed, initiated and produced over 140 new productions and has won numerous Olivier® and Tony® Awards. West End and Broadway productions include: “The Book of Mormon,” “Funny Girl” at the Menier Chocolate Factory, “A Christmas Carol,” “Farinelli and the King,” “Hamlet,” “Sunny Afternoon,” “Bend It Like Beckham,” The Nether,” “The River,” “Electra,” “King Charles III,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “1984,” “Ghosts,” “Mojo,” “Chimerica,” “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Old Times,” “Twelfth Night” and “Richard III,” “A Chorus of Disapproval,” “The Sunshine Boys,” “Hay Fever,” “Absent Friends,” “Top Girls,” “Betrayal,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Clybourne Park,” “The Children’s Hour,” “A Flea in Her Ear,” “La Bête,” “All My Sons,” “Private Lives,” “Jerusalem,” “A Little Night Music,” “Legally Blonde,” “Othello,” “Arcadia,” “The Mountaintop,” “The Norman Conquests,” “A View from the Bridge,” “Dancing at Lughnasa,” “Maria Friedman: Re-Arranged,” “La Cage aux Folles,” “No Man’s Land,” “The Seagull,” “Under The Blue Sky,” “That Face,” “Dealer’s Choice,” “Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin,” “In Celebration,” “Boeing-Boeing,” “The Dumb Waiter,” “Rock ’n’ Roll,” “Love Song,” “Faith Healer,” “Bent,” “Eh Joe, Donkeys’ Years,” “Otherwise Engaged,” “Celebration,” “Shoot The Crow,” “As You Like It,” “The Home Place,” “Whose Life Is It Anyway?,” “By the Bog of Cats,” “The Woman in White,” “Guantánamo,” “Endgame,” “Jumpers,” “See You Next Tuesday,” “Hitchcock Blonde,” “Absolutely! {Perhaps},” “Sexual Perversity in Chicago,” “Ragtime,” “Macbeth,” “What the Night Is For,” “Afterplay,” “Up For Grabs,” “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,” “Noises Off,” “On An Average Day,” “A Servant to Two Masters,” “Port Authority,” “Spoonface Steinberg” and “Speed-The-Plow.” Forthcoming productions include “Funny Girl” at the Savoy Theatre, “Dreamgirls” and, with her co-producing partner, Colin Callender, collaborating with J.K. Rowling on “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Prior to forming SFP, Friedman spent three years as the producer for the Ambassador Theatre Group. Before joining ATG, she was the producer and co-founder of Out of Joint, one of Britain’s leading theatre companies. From 1989 to 1993, Friedman was a producer at the National Theatre, specializing in touring productions and theatre for young people, where she produced many productions across all scales. For a full list of SFP’s theatre credits, please visit soniafriedman.com. SUZAN HARRISON (Producer) Suzan Harrison is a multi-award-winning drama producer based in the UK, who also serves as the Company Director at Cross Fell Productions. Her career has spanned over two decades and included work on flagship programming for a host of internationally renowned broadcasters. Her recent credits include “The Dresser,” Channel 4’s “Full English,” BBC’s “Inspector George Gently” and ITV’s “Mansfield Park.” Since first producing for the BBC on “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” in 1996, which won a Peabody Award on release, Harrison has picked up two Emmys®, three Golden Globes, as well as the PGA award - Television Producer of the Year Award in Long form for “Elizabeth I” (HBO/Channel 4). SCOTT HUFF (Associate Producer) Scott Huff currently serves as Playground’s Senior Vice President of Development and Production, overseeing its full slate of projects across television and theatre.