Park Theatre presents the World Premiere of
Ian McKellen with
Shakespeare, Tolkien, Others & You
Director I Jez Bond
Designer | Al Turner
Lighting Designer I Julian McCready
Production Manager I Sacha Queiroz
Stage Manager I Isabella Strada
Deputy Stage Manager | Bessie Hitchin
Assistant Producer | Daniel Cooper
Photography I Mark Douet
Jez Bond – Biography
After graduating Hull University with a BA Honours in Drama I was awarded the Channel Four Theatre Director Bursary, and trained at Watford Palace Theatre, gaining valuable experience in the running of a mid scale theatre.
In the first half of my career I worked all over the world – including London: A Season in South Africa (Old Vic), Canaries Sometimes Sing (Old Red Lion & Kings Head) the regions: I Have Been Here Before (Watford Palace Theatre), Sleeping Beauty (Salisbury Playhouse) and abroad: The Twits (Tour of Switzerland) Misconceptions (Hong Kong Arts Centre). As a dramaturge my work with writers led me to support writers at Soho Theatre, Royal Court and Young Vic.
A long-standing burning desire to run a theatre building and be part of a community eventually took hold – and in 2009, after discovering a vacant office beside Finsbury Park station, Creative Director Melli Marie and I set about to establish a new theatre; Park Theatre.
The theatre opened in May 2013 to great acclaim from both the press and our audiences. Since then we have presented a range of plays, across our two spaces, many of which have gone on to tour or transfer to the West End or New York. I have had the pleasure to work with a wealth of wonderful and talented people – and to direct some remarkable new plays including Hurling Rubble at the Sun and Adult Supervision plus the Christmas shows Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk which I co-wrote, with Mark Cameron, as well as composed. I most recently directed Miriam Margolyes, Frances Barber and Jonathan Forbes in Madame Rubinstein.
With a side passion for building projects, and having led the £2.6m conversion of Park Theatre, I have been a guest speaker at the Theatres Trust Conference: Converting Spaces, the RIBA Conference: 150 years of Engineering, Bruford on the Southbank: New Build / ReBuild and The International Theatre Conference in Colombia – and have enjoyed consulting on a number of new theatre buildings internationally.